The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh Away
by Code
Summary: Second installment to my BSG 41 story.
1. LIFE

CHAPTER ONE

------LIFE-----

_"...listen to me. Forget the damn toaster. Climb now or your dead. . . Gods damn it Kara, pull up now. We can still pull out of this, we haven't gone past the point of no return. Pull up!"_

_She was engulfed by the light. It was welcoming. Leoben was right. There was nothing terrible about death. When you finally face it, it's beautiful._

_"Gods damn it, where are you?" He looked around for her in the clouds until he spotted the Viper. "Visual. Visual. Okay. Kara, I'm coming to get you." His Viper raced towards hers._

_"Lee. . . I'll see you on the other side."_

_"Kara, please listen to me! Come back."_

_"Just let me go." She was ready. He was keeping her here._

_"Gods damn it Kara! You come back! Come back!"_

_She knew in her heart this was the moment. "It's okay. Just let me go. They're waiting for me."_

_Her Viper exploded. "No! No!" yelled Lee. _

_His radio crackled with static. "Lee," it was his dad. "Do you have her in sight? Can you see her?"_

_He pressed the comm trigger next to his thumb and responded. "Negative. She. . . went in. She went in."_

_"We're sending in the search and rescue birds right now. We'll find her," said Adama over the radio._

_"No dad, it's no use. Her ships in," his voice broke. His rational thought almost turned into tears, "...pieces. Her ships in pieces. No chute. We lost her." Those words struck him deep. He pulled up and left the gas giant._

_-  
_

I woke up with a gasp for air. For a split second I didn't know where I was. The room was pitch black, except for a small green LED light on the wall next to me. Then, like most mornings, my memories came flooding back to me. Long story short: the worlds had ended. Life was restricted to a handful of people. We were exiled from everything. The floating rock we lived in was our home.

I touched the LED on the wall and the lights came on. My pupils involuntarily constricted. I was in my quarters on the Craton. Formally Commander Sheratons quarters, they became mine a few years ago after the holocaust. I sat up and picked up the journal I kept on the nightstand next to my bed. I rubbed my eyes with my other hand to wipe away the sleep. I checked my watch. I had been asleep for twelve hours. _Surely I'm late for something!_ Then I remembered this was my one day a month I had off. I stood and reached out my arm just enough to turn on the coffee pot on the other side of the tiny room. Then I sat back on my bed and opened the journal.

The smell of coffee flooded the cabin. It joined with the smell of the Craton. It smelled like someone was making coffee in a brand new locker room.

Since the holocaust, I would have vivid dreams. At first I feared it was from the trauma of what happened back then, physically. I thought my brain had some loose wiring. But the doctors gave me a full exam and found nothing. When I finally spoke to a therapist, she advised me to start writing down my dreams to keep track of them. The journal I kept next to my bed was full of dreams. In some dreams I was a participant. In most, I was an observer. Occasionally I had a normal dream. And rarely, very rarely, I was someone else.

I opened the journal and flipped through it. I found the empty page I was looking for and quickly jotted down my dream before my short term memory could wipe it from me. At the bottom of the entry I usually concluded with a date and a point of view remark. I wrote the date in FTB time. Then I wrote the P.O.V: _This was the first time I was God. Not a god. Not one of the Gods. I actually believed I was the one, all knowing God. I'm afraid. _

I sighed. Then the phone buzzed in its slot in the wall adjacent my bed. There were two phones. One of them always connected with the CIC. This was not that one. I sighed again. This was my only day off. I wanted to do nothing. I growled at myself and picked up the phone. "Cody," I answered forcefully.

"Admiral," said Matt Tinker on the other end. Matt was one of my closest friends. He was also the Commander of our only Battlestar, the Virgil. Today was his swing shift as FTB Commander to fill in for me. For him to call me meant this was serious or he wouldn't have bothered me.

-

"What is it Matt?" I asked while I closed my journal.

"The Battleship Athena is in trouble. One of their Raptors just jumped in to report. They were in low orbit of Scorpia picking up survivors when the Cylons jumped on top of them. Right now Athena is out running them, flying around the planet at low altitudes, but they can't keep it up for long. Their FTL took a direct hit and they need some help with the Baseships so they can leave the planets atmosphere."

"Prep Dock-Jump-Zone," I hung up the phone and picked up the CIC phone. I quickly got a response. "Begin jump prep from dock jump zone for Scorpia orbit. Five minute personnel recall. Start the clock!" I hung up the phone and got dressed as fast as I could. It didn't take but a second for the ships speakers to broadcast the message. I could only imagine what the civilians on FTB were thinking when they heard the recall on the stations Public Address system.

The Craton was hard docked into the station. A long process was involved in detaching all the connectors. Through trial and error, we managed to get the time down to little over five minutes. Of the Colonial warships, Craton and Virgil were the only ones at the station. And detaching a Battlecruiser was far easier and quicker than detaching a Battlestar. Especially if that Battlestar was being overhauled (an overhaul Virgil desperately needed).

I finished putting on my uniform, threw some water on my face and my hair, and made my way to the CIC. It was a brisk walk, considering it was just down the corridor. The double glass doors to the CIC opened automatically, and I walked in with a tablet computer in my hands. I was busy writing our mission program.

-

My first best friend, David Slaton, a Chief Petty Officer, and a better computer programmer than myself, took the tablet out of my hands. And, in one fluid motion, continued right where I left off without asking anything. This might of seemed insubordinate to others. But to me, David knew what was acceptable. He knew I needed to do other things. And he also knew he could write a better program than I could. He was cocky and arrogant. We were in each others peer groups. We got along perfectly.

I walked up to the lighted information management table. On the table were grids and maps of Scorpia and its celestial bodies. On the other side of the back-lit table was my executive officer, Mike Marks, busy at work. He was a little older than I was. I had earned his respect and his trust. He was a good guy, but he was all business. Marks had one of the many corded phones to his ear and was continually looking up and down from the overhead DRADIS displays to the table.

I looked down to the table and up to look at DRADIS. I checked the time. The five minutes were up. We had to leave now. I began barking orders. "Seal all hatches. Retract the walkways. Clear all moorings, and release the docking clamps." As I gave each command, people reacted swiftly. The CIC was ordered chaos. I heard and felt the docking clamps release, and for a moment I felt the gravity plating compensate for the new inertia causing our upward momentum.

Marks hung up his phone. "Admiral, we have a full crew on board."

"Very good. Mr. James," he was my communications officer. "Request permission for inner jump."

James relayed my request to FTB's CIC. I could only assume Tinker was ready for this. In theory, there was enough space inside the moon for a ship the size of Craton to use its FTL and not have repercussion from the spatial distortions. In practice, we ever only allowed Raptors and transports to jump in and out like that. This would be a first for all of us. "FTB reports all clear," responded James.

"Helm, put us in the jump zone," I said calmly. I watched DRADIS closely as the helmsman did his best not to crash us into the Dock Tower. It took less than a minute. Craton floated over the tower at an equal distance from all points around us. This was the Dock-Jump-Zone. "Marks, jump the ship." I looked back up at DRADIS.

Marks walked over to the FTL console. "In three," he lifted the guard cover and inserted the glowing green key. "Two," I held onto the table. I hated jumps. "One." He turned the key. We disappeared into oblivion. Little did I know, disappearing into oblivion would be the highlight of my day given the events to come.


	2. ACTIVATE

CHAPTER TWO

---ACTIVATE---

_Her consciousness evaporated into the heavens. For a split moment she was one with all things in the universe. Space and time was revealed to her. She knew of humanities future, and of its fate to come. Everything was peaceful as her mind just floated in the sea of stars. It was tranquil and beautiful. If this was death, it was nothing to fear. Death was something to embrace. Her mind floated down to the rocky body below her. It was a planet surrounded by six moons. Just below her, in the far distance, a ship appeared._

_-_

We reappeared from the jump. I was startled. Something felt. . .off.

Then the ships main engines fired. We didn't have time to brace. When you jump, you jump with your current speed and direction. We had to speed up to the orbital momentum of Scorpia. FTB was a tiny moon that orbited outside the system's heliosphere, in a 27º orbital inclination to the ecliptic plane. With such a distance from the center, FTB moved slower than any other planet, especially the core worlds. Once we jumped from FTB we needed to speed up to reach the mean momentum threshold of the system. That required an acceleration maneuver, which was usually done slowly in increments.

But to jump from the station directly to orbit a planet was hard. This acceleration maneuver exceeded the gravitational plating tolerance, and we all had to compensate with our bodies for the difference. I held on to the information table railing. Marks entire body was slumped over the table. Several crew members fell over. The ship shimmied and shook. I felt myself being pulled into the bulkhead.

Then the pull stopped as we reached Scorpia's orbital velocity of 36.5 kilometers per second, or roughly 81,000 miles per hour. Now we had to find the Athena, and hope the Cylons didn't detect us. "Slaton, what do you have?" I asked staring at the blank DRADIS sweep.

He responded, "approaching planet. DRADIS isn't picking up anything. We are still pretty far out though."

Marks looked at me then the DRADIS screen, "could be on the other side of the planet."

I sighed. "James, get on the scrambler and see if you can pick up Athena." I heard James in the background relaying over the comm. I sighed again. I listened to James try the broadcast a few more times while I stared at the DRADIS screens, hopeful for the ship to turn up.

Marks looked at James, who just shook his head 'no' while he continued to broadcast. Then Marks looked back at me, "recommend we lower our orbit. Their signatures could be masked by geographic features. Scorpia has some of the tallest mountains in the Colonies."

I thought about it for a moment. "Very well. Maintain Condition One. Helm lower our altitude to 200 miles. David, initiate weapons program nine." We watched and waited while DRADIS swept the area again and again. James kept broadcasting.

-

_Floating in space, with its engines off, a modified Cylon Raider watched. It observed the Battlecruiser Craton lower its altitude. It took note that the ship was moving towards it. The Raider anticipated the moment. Once the Craton lowered its orbit, the moment arrived. The Raider retracted its visor and transmitted. The process took less than a second. Then its FTL spooled and it jumped._

_-_

James grabbed his headset with both his hands. Marks and I both looked at him. We could see he was trying to make out something hard to hear. I picked up one of the headsets hanging from the lighted table. Marks followed. The three of us listened to the static.

"Battleship Athena, this is the Battlecruiser Craton. Do you read me?" James was always very clear and disciplined on the radio. His broadcast was returned with a different pitch of static from the background noise. "Battleship Athena, this is the Battlecruiser Craton. Do you read me?" Again the message was returned with a different pitch of static. But this time we heard mumbling. James kept pressing buttons on his computer. I saw he was trying to fine tune and filter the static.

I pressed the headset onto my ears as I looked up at the DRADIS screen. Our altitude was low. This was both good and bad. Our DRADIS sweeps were more powerful now. However, they didn't go as far. The same was true for the comm bands.

James did something different, because I now heard garbled mumbling. James held his headset firmly in place. Then he began writing down some notes. I walked over with Marks and read his notes. _THIS IS BORING, IM BORED. OH GOOD SOMETHING TO DO. SHIPS JUMPING, AWESOME! I LOVE JUMPS. _The page continued like this until I found where he was writing what he was hearing. _OOF HARD RE-ENTRY.__ CYL__(ONS)__ FO__(LLOW)__IN__(G)__(RAID)__ER __(W)__ING T__(RA)__P._ Other than noticing James got bored quickly and liked to doodle, I also noticed the last thing he wrote and was immediately reminded why I valued this kid. He had good ears.

I tossed my headset back on the table, "David, you got it yet?" Marks put his headset back and walked over to Weapons Control to talk to Dyson about the trap.

"I have a bearing," responded Slaton. "Transmission is coming from 060 carom 328. And moving fast! Carom 322, 319, 315. It has to be her sir."

I watched DRADIS but didn't see anything. The mountains must have still been masking the Athena's signature. "I agree." I rubbed my eyes. I needed coffee. "Helm, put us over that contact. Everyone keep an eye on DRADIS." I felt and heard the ship move against the wind. We were moving against the rotation of the planet. The air was so dispersed up here it was practically zero. But at our altitude, we were still low and fast enough for the friction of the atmosphere to considerably push on our hull.

We reached our target and turned to follow directly over it. "James?" I asked looking at him. He still held his hands on his headset pressing the speakers into his ears. He nodded 'no' at the computer screen. I understood that meant he was trying with no luck. "Slaton?" I asked looking at David.

He was putting variables into the computer. When I squinted my eyes to focus on him, it looked like he was reprogramming DRADIS to differentiate the Athena from the mountains. If he was doing that, it meant the Athena was low, too low for us to see them visually. And I wasn't wild about the idea of taking the Craton into the atmosphere. Slaton looked over to me as he pressed 'ENTER' in a melodramatic fashion. He gave a thumbs up as a blip, accompanied by a tone, popped on the DRADIS screen.

"DRADIS CONTACT!" yelled Marks from Weapons Control. Him and Dyson were planning the inevitable attack. Marks walked back to the other side of the information management table.

Then I remembered the communication static. James was still having a problem broadcasting and receiving. I looked at DRADIS. The contact was identified as 'UNKNOWN'. "Standby weapons. That's the Athena?" I asked looking at Slaton.

"Yes sir. The computer just can't pick up her IFF. It's either not transmitting or being scrambled."

"Can you apply the same algorithm to the background static in the comm band?" I had a hunch.

"Yeah, but we might get a number of false positives," answered Slaton. He turned and carried out my order.

"What are you thinking?" asked Marks.

"If our comms are being jammed, we would know. Everything is fine with us. I think the Athena is being jammed with some new kind of electronic warfare." I sighed and rolled out a map of Scorpia's surface directly below us. I pointed softly at the grid, "Athena is in the Scorpius Mountain Range, so we can rule out a DRADIS countermeasure system in use. To maneuver at those speeds in those mountains would require DRADIS to be up and running. Our DRADIS can't see them because they are being masked by the terrain. Their IFF is being garbled so the computer can't identify them. We are directly over them but can't talk to them. That leaves only one conclusion."

"The Cylons are jamming them because they don't want them to broadcast," concluded Marks.

"We have to assume the Cylons saw the Raptor leave. So jamming a call for help is pointless at this moment. Which means?" I asked. I knew the answer but wanted him to follow.

"Athena found out something. Something big," revealed Marks. "How do we get a message to them and let them know we are here? I'm not wild about taking the ship into the atmosphere."

I smiled. I was thinking the same thing just a moment ago.

Just then, a Cylon Raider Wing appeared on the DRADIS screens, as did Athena's IFF right in front of the wing. I looked over to James and smiled. I was going to congratulate him, but before I could he said, "It' wasn't me. They stopped jamming."

I looked up at DRADIS. I instantly got worried. "Marks, point defense stations, scan their areas of responsibility. James, get Athena up here." I watched DRADIS closely. "Slaton, is the background noise still there?" As I asked, Marks had walked to Weapons Control to relay the order. Our point defense cannons were usually automated, but we still had crews in them for an emergency manual override. These crews had the only people that had windows looking out into space.

"It is," answered Slaton. I looked to him with a certain level of frustration. He understood that I wanted him to continue programming to find the background static.

"Admiral," said James. "Athena is on her assent. Their FTL is fixed."

"Begin jump prep," I ordered. I watched the Raider Wing ascend with the Athena. The automated point defense cannons began to target the Raiders. Then it happened.

BEEP. BEEP. BE-BE-P-B-P-EE-B-P.

Displayed on the DRADIS console was the trap we begun to expect. "DRADIS CONTACT!" yelled Slaton from his station.

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP

The contacts kept appearing. Each one was designated 'UNKNOWN', but each one was from the planets surface. Just in the area we were scanning, we were receiving thousands of contacts. Slaton spoke up, "I finished the program."

I walked to his station to look over his shoulder. "Filter out stationary targets," Slaton cut me off.

"Admiral, when I filtered out the stationary contacts from the background static, the result was zero. So I compensated for size, distance, amplitude and modulation and crossed that with all known Cylon frequencies. This is the result. What is this? What are these contacts? What did we find?"

I grew worried. Slaton was asking what I was thinking. "I don't know." I became aware I wasn't the only person hovering over Slaton, Marks was there. I stood up and walked back to my customary spot in the middle of the CIC next to the information management table. I heard the point defense batteries firing. "Athena?" I asked James.

"Athena is ready to jump," relayed James.

"Tell them to get out of here," I replied.

"Stand by for jump people!" ordered Marks.

While this was my last order, I had a different idea. "Hold jump."

"Hold jump, aye sir," responded Marks. I heard the relay among the crew.

"Athena is clear," said James.

"Nuclear launch order," I took the key around my neck and slid it over to Slaton. He didn't miss a beat, but everyone else in the CIC stared at me. "Weapons, all missiles and warheads. Target all the contacts you can." I refused to repeat myself. I just stared at Marks who was surprised.

It took an instant for him to snap out of it. Then he yelled, "you heard the order people!"

"IDENTIFIED DRADIS CONTACT!" yelled Slaton. "Three Basestars 225 carom 221. Weapons range in two minutes." The CIC returned to ordered chaos, but it was a lot quieter now, except for the point defense guns firing. The helmsman began turning us into the approaching base ships in preparation for the main batteries to fire.

Slaton quickly walked over to the Nuclear Arm-Release Terminal. He inserted my electronic key into the slot designated 'COMMANDING OFFICER'. The computer prompted a personal identification code. "Sir, I need your key," instructed Slaton to Marks. Marks took his key off his neck and gave it to him. He inserted Mark's key in the slot designated 'EXECUTIVE OFFICER'. At that moment two lock boxes opened up on the terminal to reveal a special keyboard with characters, symbols, letters and numbers. Marks and I entered our codes.

Dyson signaled Slaton a thumbs up. Slaton nodded. This meant the programs for the warheads were ready. I turned my attention to the advancing base ships. "Standby jump. Helm, flip us over." I watched the attitude indicator move as our Z axis rotated. Then I heard Slaton engage each missile tube door lock. Ten loud thunks accompanied one another. I looked at the Arm-Release terminal and watched as one by one the ten missile indicator lights tuned from red to green.

"Missiles armed and ready for launch," informed Slaton.

"Radiological contact," informed James.

"Base ships launching Raider Wings," said Marks.

With a firm knot in my stomach, I gave the order. "Fire!" I watched the terminal display each missile as solid green, blinking green, blinking yellow, to off. Once all the lights turned off, which took seventeen seconds, I ordered the jump.

We disappeared.

-

_The missiles departed their launch bays and accelerated towards the planet. They scattered in a formation resembling a spiders web. Other missiles, from the planets surface, were fired to intercept the nukes. On board the nukes, the computer saw the surface missile launches and computed speed, time, and trajectory. Each nuke made a calculated decision. All ten nukes were talking to one another, it was a way at maximizing efficiency. They agreed that to reach their targets, they must enter stage two. Each missile ejected its launch rocket, and blew off its nose cone. All that remained on each one were six warheads connected to secondary rocket. The surface missiles were compensating to intercept, so all the computers gave the high altitude override. The warheads launched off from their secondary rockets, and accelerated in different directions. The sky of Scorpia was littered with sixty pointed objects falling towards the surface. A handful of warheads were hit by missiles. Another few were destroyed by gun fire. The rest hit their targets. Half the planet lit up with a brilliant flash of light._


	3. REVELATIONS

CHAPTER THREE

-----Revelations-----

We came out of the jump and began our breaking maneuver. This time, we performed it within Cratons operational tolerance. The deceleration to FTB station was a smooth ride. It would have been nice to jump directly into the station, and while it was technically calculable, it was too risky.

After we slowed, we then began the process of docking inside the station. It was lengthy and involved delicate maneuvers in close proximity to other ships and structures.

-

Craton was the most advanced ship in the fleet. She was the new Mars Class Battlecruiser that would have replaced the aging Venus Class Battlecruisers. Everything about her was new or unique. Craton looked like a miniature Battlestar, without the flight pods, and was equipped with automated Point Defense Cannons and the most powerful Main Forward Batteries to ever be used on a ship her size. Everything about her could be automated. But all that automation was useless in FTB.

FTB was a small, moon shaped asteroid that orbited just outside the system's heliosphere . The actual station was the hollowed out inside of FTB. It was constructed over half a century ago during the first Cylon War as a doomsday bunker. The station had stockpiles of weapons, food, supplies and ships. But the stations most powerful asset was its ability to jump. At the heart of the station was the largest Faster Than Light drive ever constructed, but it would only work if it was augmented by the power cores from the six original Battlestars berthed around it.

-

Pilot ships had to guide us in through the entrance-exit tunnel and down onto our spot. Everything was done in small steps. It took over an hour to finally dock, get everything connected and the airlocks to pressurize. Once the exterior hatch slid open, I walked across the retractable, accordion like bridge, and headed for the stations CIC, which resided underneath the base of the Dock Tower.

After hiking through the station for twenty minutes, I finally walked into the giant, octagonal shaped room. There were stations and computer terminals on all eight sides facing the center. In the center was a polygonal lighted information management table with a large DRADIS console hovering over it. The CIC had two levels, and the second story was only large enough for one row of computer terminals. Those terminals ran elevated, contouring to the shape of the room and looked down into the CIC. The entire room was very well lit with florescent lights, but it was very old and rusted.

As soon as I walked in, someone called the deck to attention. I waved it off and proceeded to my goal. Standing next to Commander Tinker, in the middle of the room, was the Commander of the Athena, Pamela Beverley. I had a million questions, I didn't know where to start. When I approached them both, I received a salute which I quickly returned. I noticed a woman standing next to Beverley who I had never seen before. She was wearing a Colonial Marine Core uniform with Major insignia. The Major saluted, and I returned it. But before I could say or ask anything I was interrupted.

"Admiral Cody!"

The entire room stopped and stared. Only one person ever dared to even attempt to talk to me like that. I turned around, and said in a the angriest way I could, "What do you want Chief Councilor Jacobs?" I knew that remark would anger him, but I didn't care. He had just yelled at me in front of my men. I had to be even more rude back to establish my firm superiority to the Chief Councilor on military matters.

He readjusted his tone for the audience watching. He instantly switched to politician, "Admiral Cody, welcome back." He now had a civil tone. He kept talking as he approached me. For a minute I thought he would request for me to join him in private, where I believe he would have yelled at me out of earshot from wondering minds. Nope. He proceeded to question me right then and there, in the middle of the CIC, in front of the troops.

I knew what this was about and welcomed it. "Is this important Councilor?" I asked.

"I would say so Admiral," he huffed, a bit calmer now. "You just nuked half the planet of Scorpia!" His voice began to rise again. The room grew totally silent, except for the sound of the air circulating and the DRADIS sweeps.

-

When we first found FTB station, Sean Jacobs was the highest ranking government member. During the holocaust, he was the Colonial Secretary of Interior. When President Adar, the Vice President, and the top guys in the Cabinet were wiped out, Case Orange was activated. Case Orange was an automated beacon that was kept around from the first Cylon War and was designed to keep the government intact in-case all the head guys were gone.

The emergency broadcast system transmitted Case Orange for over two hours. Its first response was from the Secretary of Education, Laura Roslin. She was 43rd in line to the Presidency. Its second response came at the end of the two hour broadcast from Sean Jacobs. He was 18th in line to the Presidency, so authority recognized him.

But he didn't desire the Presidency, any more than I wanted to be the Admiral. Once Jacobs saw there were so few of us left, he dissolved the Presidency and created a governing council, the FTB Quorum of Thirteen. He was elected, and has been continually re-elected, the thirteenth position as Chief Councilor. He knew military matters rested with us, the Commanders, but that didn't stop him from his weekly menstrual cycle of walking around the CIC huffing and puffing.

-

When dealing with a quorum member I had to remember to keep my political hat on. I lowered my voice, smiled, and spoke the language Jacobs was sure to understand, "Chief Councilor, nuking the planet was a military decision and I stand by it. We were there and had the advantage. Further more, need I remind you that the Council has voted to assist the military in _ANY_ decision that results in the destruction of the Cylons? And, on top of that, any person hindering the military from carrying out any mission of destroying the Cylons will be charged with treason? And as you and I both know, there is only one punishment for treason. "

I saw Jacobs gulp down his spit from his dry mouth. He looked nervous, and he eyeballed the sidearm on my hip. In hindsight, I probably went a little too far implying empty threats, but that didn't matter. Jacobs saw he was out of line.

He spoke calmer now, with a touch of fear in his voice, "Admiral, I think your misunderstanding." Now I saw he was trying to backtrack his steps, "I wasn't implying anger, I was excited and I came down here to congratulate you on a job well done." He shook my hand as he looked around at our growing audience in the CIC. I foresaw a speech. Sure enough, "Admiral Cody, you and the men and women of the Colonial Battlecruiser Craton have began what I hope is the first step in reclaiming our homes." He began to walk around the CIC. I could see he enjoyed the audience. "If any of us wish for our children to grow up breathing fresh air, and looking at blue skys, then we must continue to drive the Cylons from the Colonies. The only way to accomplish this is with the cunning and skill that you and your crew demonstrated today." He shook my hand, again. "Congratulations"

I heard an applause. I couldn't believe it. Jacobs could talk his way out of anything. The crew in the FTB CIC was applauding his frakking speech. I knew Jacobs came in here to rip my ass about using our nukes, especially about using them on one of our planets. The guy was nothing short of a political genius. He finally left the CIC after having a quick round of campaigning.

I turned my attention to the matter at hand. Question of the day: What the frak was happening on that planet? But I did not care to continue that conversation in ear shot of everyone in the CIC. Tinker, Beverley, the Major with Beverley, and I walked out of the room and down the corridor.

We went to FTB's War Room, adjacent the CIC. The room was nothing but an auditorium, with a lowered center. In the center was one huge polygonal shaped table, much like an information management table in the CIC. But this table was not on, so it wasn't lighted. None of the computer screens around the room were on, as were none of the stations looking down at the center table. The walls were rusted orange and the room smelled of iron. For a moment I thought it was strange that the room was so neglected, because we had been living there for years. Then I remembered that the War Room was for attack planning and such. We never took the station into battle, and when we needed to plan missions, we either used Craton's War Room, because it was state-of-the-art, or we used Virgil's War Room.

We stood around the black table. "Beverly, what happened?"

Pamela Beverly was the former Captain of the Chronicle, a science vessel. She was also a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Colonial Fleet. Before retiring, she achieved the position of 'Second Officer Battlestar Valkyrie'. She was comparably young, considering her achievements. She never told me her age, but I took her for her word when she said she was just under forty. I had to admit to myself that she was a very attractive brunette who held herself in a way that commanded respect from others. So it wasn't even a question when I was asked who I wanted to command our overhauled Original Battleship, the Athena.

I stared at Beverly, interested in her answer. She looked at me. I couldn't help but notice her attractiveness. Her blue eyes complimented her long brunette hair that was tied up off her neck. "Well," she hesitated. "Our mission was the scheduled survivor checkup. We launched Raptors with search teams to the mountain ranges throughout the north and west continents. As you know, we found five people two months ago, the last time we did this, in those mountains. They spoke of others, so I had hoped we would find their main resistance cell." She crossed her arms and began to pace. "I was right, but we didn't find them, they contacted us." She looked at the female Marine next to her.

Right then I understood, "You've been on Scorpia all this time?"

The Major nodded, "Yes. We've been fighting the Cylons for a few years now, and quite frankly, we thought it was just us." The Major was a middle aged woman, maybe 35. She had natural blond hair, and a face that was equally natural in beauty. Her upper class Caprican accent complimented everything about her. I had to shake my head a bit to snap out of the attractiveness I felt.

"I know the feeling," I responded. For the longest time, we thought it was just us. Then we began the process of checking up on the planets, looking for survivors every month. The result was astounding. We had picked up just under a thousand survivors in just the last six months. Because of the success of the first checkup, I instituted it as policy, with the approval of the Council.

"No sir, I don't think you do," the Major responded. This caught me off guard. I didn't know where she was going with this. "The only way were able to track orbiting ships was from the salvaged components of a downed flattop hauler that crashed into the mountains last week."

That caught my attention. I crossed my arms and paced. I saw Tinker was equally interested. I looked from the Major to Beverly. "Is this confirmed?"

Beverley nodded, "yes sir. We picked up the remains of the flattop on DRADIS when we landed the ship. She was registered," Beverly stopped talking to take out a notepad from her back pocket. She flipped through the pages until she found what she wanted, "they were registered M-Class Flattop Hauler whiskey two two seven."

Tinker signaled he wanted the notepad. She gave it to him. Then Tinker looked at me, to which I signaled for him to go. Tinker left the room. I knew he was checking on the registration. "So you pulled out the DRADIS array from the ship?" I was a bit confused where this story was going.

The Major continued, "that's not all of it." She sighed. I knew there was something big coming. "We had to get off that planet. We knew y'all were up here, because the guys you took a few months ago left someone to report back. But every time we tried to contact anyone, while using the equipment we had, we always found we were jammed." Now the Major crossed her arms and began to pace. "We tried to shutoff the jamming from the source, but that idea was scratched as soon as we learned the jamming was coming from thousands of locations across the planets surface. We don't know details, but what we do know is that the Cylons are doing or creating something. Something that has to do with their home-world."

I stared at the Major. Then I looked at Pam, "Commander Beverly, why did you land your ship on a Cylon occupied world?" I considered this a relevant question that had broad ramifications. I was worried about a Cylon stowaway.

Beverly answered, "the Major and her command were able to analyze the jamming signal and cut through it with the tech they acquired from the flattop. It's a good thing too because it turns out they were in the Scorpia Mountains actively engaging the Cylons. She had over eight hundred resistance fighters that were pinned down in a valley. She said they had been there for," she looked at the Major. "Three days?" The Major nodded. Beverley continued, "picking them up in Raptors was not rational. I made the decision to land and provide covering fire while I grabbed everyone in one shot."

"Then the Cylon's hopped on you?" I asked.

She answered, "that's right sir. All our Raptors were destroyed, and our FTL and DRADIS was knocked out. We had to use the Majors retrofitted DRADIS to navigate the mountains at those speeds. But that had a catch. Their DRADIS worked only in a 130 by 130 degree area. So we couldn't ascend and risk being taken out by a Raider or missile. Then we saw you in orbit and headed for your parallel location on the planet in order to attempt to communicate with you over the Cylons jamming signal."

"It worked," I responded. "My comm guy heard your mumbles. And not all your Raptors were destroyed, one made it back. That's why we were there."

"Thank you sir, for saving our ass." Beverly was sincere in her thanks.

Tinker walked back into the room with a clipboard. He handed it to me. As I read what was on the clipboard, Tinker dictated it aloud, "the M-Class Flattop Hauler whiskey two two seven is registered under the name The Carina. She was declared lost with all hands during the holocaust."

"That's not all," replied the Major. The three of us looked at her with interest. "We found one sole survivor on the flattop. The crash had him pretty banged up, but he was already dying from radiation poisoning. Before he died, he was talking delusional. He was happy to be home on Scorpia and hoped the Gods would forgive him for his fear. He said he was responsible for jumping away from the Raptor and hoped his crew would forgive him." She sighed. "We only found eight bodies on the ship, and they had died before the crash from radiation poisoning as well. When we asked where the rest of his crew was, all he said was _they're on the other side of the star cluster, with Galactica._"

-

_She sat on the table in the middle of the room. Her upper flightsuit was tied around her waist. She just stared at the Major. She was in a position to protect Roller. She knew the shape of things to come, but couldn't help but feel sorrow over it._

-

"We took the flattops flight recorder," continued the Major. "But we have been unable to access it."

I stood. This information had my heart beating fast. I needed to order the jump of the station in case a Cylon had stowed away on Athena. I also needed to tear apart the Carina's flight recorder. As I left, Tinker, Beverley and the Major followed. As I walked out the door I said, "I didn't catch your name Major."

I heard her accented voice from the back of the pack, "D'Anna Biers, sir."


	4. JUMP

CHAPTER FOUR

-----JUMP-----

"Security?" I asked loudly as I walked into FTB CIC.

"Yes Admiral?" responded a Marine Corps Captain from the row of computers adjacent the entrance.

"Quarantine the Athena. I want a deck by deck inspection of the ship and a face to face check of her crew and passengers." I saw Beverley give me a stern look as I gave the order, but I knew she understood. "I want a guarantee there are no Hotel-Charlies in the group she just picked up from Scorpia." The Marine Captain nodded in understanding. At the mention of the code name 'Hotel-Charlie' he instinctively grabbed the handle to his sidearm before coming to his senses.

The Marine Captain said something into a corded phone next to his station, then rushed out of the room yelling, "Quarantine underway, no frakking toaster is getting on this station!" Then I remembered, he was one of the Marines with me on the Craton when we took out Stevens.

Major Biers asked Beverley, "What's a hotel charlie?"

I grabbed a folder of five pictures that rested on a shelf under the lighted table and handed it to Biers. The folder said KNOWN CYLON AGENTS and had the Colonial emblem for 'top secret' on it. "These," said Beverley, while looking at the pictures, "are Humanoid-Cylons. We know of five models with multiple copies. Through an exhaustive investigation, we have identified them as Shelly Godfrey, Sharon Valerii, Leoben Conoy, Aaron Doral, and Simon Davis."

"Tinker, jump the station," I commanded as I glanced over to the power stations. I saw the Power Allocation Computer screen and the Power Grid Status screen. We were in the 'green' so I knew there wasn't going to be a drain on the stations power if we jumped. Sometimes, if power isn't properly allocated, the spinners will not spool to achieve the necessary charge, and we end up wasting fuel.

"Jump the station, aye sir," responded Tinker. Commander Tinker went to work barking orders in the background. "Spool up spinners one through eight in ten second intervals, start the clock!"

"What's happening?" asked Major Biers.

_"Give me a status of Battlestars one through six."_

Beverley answered Biers, "This entire station is capable of faster than light travel."

Biers mouthed an 'oh' as Tinker continued,_ "prep for primary coordinates."_

_"Olympus is spooling up," responded a female voice._

_"Rycon spooling," added a young man._

_"Solaria and Universal charged and ready," said a young lady._

_"Acropolis spooling," continued the first female voice._

_"Erasmus is catching up," finished the young man._

I walked over to one of the many rows of manned computer stations. A teenage boy was sitting there with a headset on. He was one of the many internal communications experts on the station. He nodded in my direction. I spoke softly to him, in order to not interfere with the jump prep, "contact Craton, get Chief Slaton down here. And contact Athena, tell her XO to get down here with the salvaged flight recorder."

_"Olympus and Rycon charged and ready," said the young man._

_"Spinners one through eight are at forty percent," said another male voice from the back of the row of computers._

I kept talking to the teenage comm boy, "Also, when you call Craton, tell Marks I want him to assist in the inspection of the Athena." The kid nodded and relayed my commands to the appropriate people. I walked over and joined Beverly and Biers at the lighted table.

_"Spinners one through eight are now at sixty percent,"_

_"Begin dumping the residual charge through the integrity shell."_

"Whats an integrity shell?" asked Biers, again in a low voice to Beverly. It was obvious to me Biers was trying hard to catch-up on current events.

I interrupted Beverly before she could answer, "FTB is nothing more than a space station sized moon, hollowed out, and reinforced." I flopped a graphic of the framework of the station on the lighted table and continued, "you can see here the intricate framework along the stations walls. This framework is much like a geodesic spiders web that is laced within the crust of the moon. We call this the 'shell.' If you fly a Raptor around the dock, you'll see the massive supports that form interior part of the shell." I flipped pictures of the dock onto the table.

Biers examined each one and asked in her accented voice, "this must of taken a long time and cost more than one planet can produce in a year. How did you build this?"

I smiled. "We didn't build it, the governments of the Colonies did, and they did it a long time ago." I pointed to the old equipment around the room to prove my point.

Biers set the picture back down and asked, "Why do you dump power into the shell?"

_"Spinners one, three, five, and seven are at one hundred percent. The rest are closing in."_

I sighed. The answer to that was well over my head, but I understood the basics of it. "An FTL enables an object to jump from one position in space to another, near instantaneously, without the temporal effect caused by near light travel." I saw Biers' eyes glaze over. I let out a single laugh before I continued, "basically you pop out of the universe here," I pointed to an empty point above the table, "and reappear in the universe over here," now I pointed to a point on the table. "We call it 'jumping,' and the whole process is virtually instantaneous. But to do it, you need a way to make sure everything jumps altogether at the same time. This is what limits ship sizes."

_"Spinners two, four, and six are at one hundred percent. Spinner eight is at ninety five."_

_"Shell is charged."_

At that time, we heard and felt a hum from all around us. I continued, "when an FTL drive is activated, it emits a spatial distortion field that pulls everything in the surrounding area inward toward its center. This would be the moment you jump off the universe. What makes the ship jump with the FTL depends on two factors, size and strength, the size of the ship relative to the drive, and the strength at which the FTL is physically connected to the ship, and every structural point thereafter. Structure is important, because the FTL is the object actually jumping off the universe and it needs to pull the ship with it. Small ships are excellent for jumping, the ship to drive ratio is damn near one to one, and the structural point is the actual frame of the ship. A Battlestar is different. The ratio is about five to one, and the FTL is mounted to the keel, which is what the main supports are mounted to, then the cross supports, cross sections, members and so on. So when a Battlestar jumps, significant physical stresses try to rip it apart."

I took a breath as I saw Biers trying to catch up.

_"We are spooled. FTL is ready for jump."_

_"Acknowledged, one minute on the clock. Sound the jump signal across the station."_

"So when something this large tries to jump?" asked Biers.

I smiled. I knew she would get it. I answered her, "it wants to rip to shreds. But we keep it from doing it. The shell is a carbon composite alloy that, when a charge is applied to it, the molecules align, become ridged and strengthen exponentially depending on how much power you can get to it. It would be great to build a Battlestar out of it, but the strength of the shell is only in a pre-aligned bidirectional way." I saw confusion, "The carbon composite beams that compose the shell are only strong up and down."

"That's why they are constructed to form a shape like a dome?" asked Biers.

"Precisely. The FTL drive at the base of the tower jumps off the universe and pulls the station inward with it. The shell is what keeps everything together as it jumps. But there is a problem. The FTL isn't large enough to pull the whole station with it in the small amount of time allotted. So,"

"You need the six Battlestars to augment the stations FTL," finished Biers.

I smiled. At the time, I thought she and I would be new friends.

_"Jump in three, two, one."_

-

_The small moon that was FTB Station, disappeared from its position in space. In less than a second, a brilliant flash of light had engulfed it. In its place, all that had remained of the moon, were a few clouds of dust, and few clumps of boulder sized rocks that had once rested on FTB's surface._

_-_

_I couldn't breathe. I was outside an Opera House, looking up towards its massive double doors. I was wearing a black tailored suit that fit me like a glove. I stood at the bottom of the stone steps that led up to the pillars that framed the doors. In front of the doors was a little girl, who I had never seen. She smiled to me, then waved for me to join her. The moment I conceived the thought to join her and moved my leg in anticipation of climbing the stairs to do so, I was stopped. _

_A hand had grabbed my arm. I was frozen, unable to move. I turned to see the owner of the hand. It was Kara. She was wearing her flightsuit, gloves, pressure collars, and holding her helmet with her other hand. Kara shook her head 'no' to me. I understood she meant for me not to join the little girl. "You and I are on a different path," she said. "The little girl and the Opera House are not for us to interfere."_

_"How do you know?" I asked because I felt a strong desire to join the girl._

_"They won't let you," said Kara as she pointed at the doors to the Opera House. Standing on either side of the doors were a man and a woman. The woman had blond hair, and was wearing a strikingly familiar red dress. The man was clean cut and wore a fascinating, pin striped, tailored suit. She looked like a Humanoid-Cylon, and he looked like a once famous scientist I used to work for, but I just couldn't put my finger on it. _

_They both glared at us in anger. "Who are they?" I asked._

_Kara glared back at them. "Elemental beings from a God who claims himself to be true. They go by, and will receive, many names over the life of this Universe. Some know them as Prophets, others will know them as Angels. Zues called them the bastardize offspring from the Erebus." The man and woman began to walk toward us._

_"Who are you? I know you're not Kara."_

_She smiled. "I'm. . ."_

_-_

_FTB reappeared. It reappeared one fifth of its way down its orbital path around the system, and north in latitude relative the systems sun. It was a distance less than a light year, but still equally impressive considering the size of the station. The position was carefully picked in order to maintain it's orbit around the system without loss in speed or distance._

_-_

We came out of the jump. My equilibrium was spinning, I lost my balance and fell down. Tinker and Beverley helped me up. "I'm fine, I'm fine," I proclaimed as I grabbed the table. The room was still spinning, but was slowing. I didn't want to appear weak in front of the crew. "Launch Raptors to standby coordinates. We have to keep the lighthouse on for the Oceanus and Metanira."

Slaton walked into the room with the XO of the Athena, Major Lindsey Cramer. She held a metal case in her arms. Inside the case was the flight recorded to the Carina. "Tinker, Beverley, with me. Major Biers, Colonel Marks could use your help inspecting the Athena." I looked to the young comm guy who I had spoken to earlier, " and escort the Major to Athena's dock please."

"Yes sir," said everyone in unison.

I walked out of the room, with my staff in tow. We were headed to another room on the same level.

-

_D'anna left FTB CIC, with her escort, and made her way to the Athena. The travel time to the middle docking level from FTB CIC was about thirty minutes, then another fifteen minutes to the dock __Athena was sitting on. So they had to go up ladders, through causeways, up stairs, and through hatches. The process was long, and confusing, but the teenage boy helped her out by leading the way. _

_They finally arrived to the middle docking level. Once there, a large circular corridor ran the circumference of the docking level, so passage to Athena would be easy. D'Anna noticed that every hundred feet there were pressure doors that were designed to seal in the event of a atmospheric breach. She also noticed how void this corridor was of people. There were thousands of people on the station, but only officers had need to access the ships. The civilians stayed in the converted tunnels, caverns, and caves below the dock. _

_Along the way, they walked past an accordion like retractable causeway that connected to one of the exterior pressure hatches on the Battlecruiser Craton. _

_ACCESSING HIGHER COMMAND FUNCTIONS_

_SLEEP MODE::SUSPENDED_

_PROGRAM 7A::ACTIVATED_

_MISSION OBJECTIVES::_

_1. ENTER CRATON, PROCEED TO NET ADMIN OFFICE, UNDETECTED_

_2. NEED TO KNOW PENDING COMPLETION OF OBJECTIVE 1_

_3. NEED TO KNOW PENDING COMPLETION OF OBJECTIVE 2_

_4. NEED TO KNOW PENDING COMPLETION OF OBJECTIVE 3_

_The teenage boy felt a tingling sensation as his neck was snapped violently to the right, severing his spinal cord from his brain. Then everything was dark._


	5. OBJECTIVES

CHAPTER FIVE

---OBJECTIVES---

We were in the all purpose computer lab. It was nothing more than a converted communications room outfitted with server farms and advanced computer terminals. The servers took up most of the rusted room. There were four computer terminals that sat on two long tables. Each table had an assorted mess of wires and cords running underneath it, stretching towards the server farms. The purpose of the room was our effort to modernize some of the stations computer systems. In theory it was a good idea. In reality, it didn't work too well. However, the room did house some very powerful computers.

I walked into the room with Commanders Matt Tinker and Pamela Beverley, Major Lindsey Cramer, and my best friend, Chief Petty Officer David Slaton. Slaton and I were the two computer whizzes, but Slaton was our only _true_ computer genius. Cramer sat the metal case on the table. She used both her hands to unfasten the lock tabs, then she lifted the lid.

Inside the case was the recorder, surrounded by styrofoam. The recorder itself was no larger than a small tool box. Flight recorders had the nickname 'black box' but in reality, the recorder was bright orange. Lindsey set the heavy recorder on the table, next to the computer terminal that Slaton had already acquired. The recorder made a loud thud as it was gently sat down which indicated it's density.

Slaton's hands were quick. I don't know how, but he had the side casing off the recorder and was tinkering inside of the box in less than a minute. After another minute, he had cords connected and was accessing the recorder on the computer terminal. The three of us hovered over Slaton's shoulders and looked at the computer screen. The screen was a generic green and black status display.

*I.E.X.E CARINA*

*FLATTOP TYPE II FREIGHTER*

*CAPRICAN CONSORTIUM MINERAL INC.*

*This is a 3800 series flight recorder. Please use only 3800 series software to access this device.*

Slaton opened a command prompt on the same screen. He quickly entered a sequence of commands then hit the 'enter' key in his typical melodramatic way. Another green and black status display came up on the monitor.

CREW.1

SHIP.2

SLOG.3

SYST.4

FLTR.5

MORE.6

"Start with the flight recorder," I ordered. Slaton pressed the number five.

::FLIGHT RECORDER::

JUMP 3345 COMPLETE 1837:34

MASTER WARNING* 1837:35

*GRAV BODY ALARM CUE 1837:35

*FUEL PRESS LOSS CUE 1837:35

*ATMOSPHERIC ENTRY ALARM1837:49

*PULL UP AURAL CUE1837:50

MASTER WARNING AURAL CUE1838:00

*CABIN PRESS LOSS1838:05

AUTO BREACH SEAL1838:08

MASTER WARNING**1838:10

POWER CORE FAILURE1838:12

MASTER WARNING AURAL CUE1838:14

CONTROL INPUT1838:15

(1:10,2:3,3:-2,4:1)PILOT STICK

INPUT ENDS1838:17

**EXTERIOR ALARM1838:20

"Okay," I said. "Enough of the recorder. They jumped in and everything went to hell as they crashed." I sighed. "David, pull up the logs."

::SHIPS LOGS::

HDD.1

VID.2

CAP.3

ADD.4

"Select the Captains logs."

::SHIPS LOGS//CAP.3[ESC TO EXIT]::

**Everyone is dead. I am the last. I have to make it home. We have to make it home. 22/29**

**We have decided, we are going back home. We have no food, no fuel, and risk being destroyed by the Cylon. But if we are against the odds and have no choice but death, I choose we proceed with hope. 22/04**

**This was my mistake. I should have never left the Raptor. Now our friends and family will have to live the rest of their lives on Galactica. Why can we never catch a break? 21/887**

**Food is on the other side of the passage. But the radiation will not protect us for long. The cockpit has moderate shielding, but not enough. Our nav computers can't calculate with all the radiation. So, we will be using pilot ships as escorts, while our main crew and passengers are offloaded on Galactica. I can't believe Roslin agreed to this. 21/790**

**We traded one hell for another. Admiral Adama destroyed Pegasus to save our ass off of New Caprica. For what? I am just as dead out here as I would have been there. At least on New Caprica we had food, and water, and a warm bed. 21/550**

"That's it for the Captains logs," said Slaton.

"Alright," I sighed. "Let's look at the hard drive logs."

-

_D'Anna completed her 1__st__ and 2__nd__ objectives. She had to use the teenage boys dead body as a diversion outside the CIC to gain access to Craton's NAO. Now she had a problem. The access hatch to the NAO was through the CIC. The dead body distraction was enough to get her across the CIC and into the NAO corridor hatch, but it would not have lasted long enough for her to get out of the CIC. So her goal of remaining undetected was appearing impossible to achieve. She had to think of a way to clear the CIC long enough for her to crawl through the hatch, get out of the CIC, and off the Craton. Then she remembered, she was in the NAO of the most networked ship in the fleet. She sat down at the computer terminal and began writing a program._

_-_

After reading the few Captains logs, we read the hard drive logs. The hard drive logs comprised of everything ever recorded on the black box, including personal logs. The four of us combed through it and finally arrived with a vague picture of what the Carina had been through.

"This is amazing," said Tinker. "Do you know what this means?"

"Yes," I sighed. I was worried.

"What is it?" asked Slaton. He was worried because I was worried.

"If this is true, then it means they abandoned us a long time ago," I said while pacing. "If people find that out, if people hear that we were abandoned by Galactica, Pegasus, and a ragtag fleet of civilians, then there is going to mass panic that is going to cause a rift."

"A rift?" asked Cramer.

"People are going to want to leave FTB and join them," responded Beverley.

"And there goes any hope we ever had of retaking our homes," I added. Right then a young man, wearing a Petty Officers uniform, walked into the lab and handed me a clip board with a piece of paper on it. On the paper was a note that I read out loud, "Oceanus is docking. . ." I trailed off into thought as I read the rest of the note.

"What is it?" asked Tinker. I handed him the clip board. "Craton's automated fire suppression system activated?

"What?" asked Slaton. He took the clip board from Tinkers hands. I saw Tinker get angry over that, and I had to wave him off from yelling at Slaton. Tinker understood and I made a mental note to correct Slaton later. I didn't mind if Slaton was insubordinate to me, but I couldn't have him doing it to the other officers just because he was my best friend. "The suppression system flooded the CIC and surrounding corridors with haloalkane. Why would it do that? Something is wrong with this. Admiral, permission to be excused?"

"Go ahead David." I gave him the permission and he left. I assumed he was heading to the Craton. "Okay," I got back on topic. "What do we know? The flight recorder was formatted and reinitialized just under a year ago. It's first chronological logs began by mentioning an escape from 'New Caprica.'"

"Which means they set down and settled on a new planet somewhere," said Beverley.

"Then the Cylons showed up and occupied the planet," added Tinker.

"And there were massive casualties in the escape," I said. "And as of about a year ago, there are about forty thousand plus survivors and a fleet of ships. Then three months after the escape from New Caprica there is a food crisis. To get to food, they have to jump through a highly radiated star cluster. The Carina evacuates its crew and passengers to the Galactica and they operate the ship with a skeleton crew armed with anti-radiation meds. They have a Raptor ahead of them to act as a pilot ship because their nav computer is fried in the cluster."

"That's when the skipper gets scared and initiates the FTL," added Tinker.

"Blind jump," stated Beverley. "Risky, damn risky."

"So they come home. But I have a problem with that story," I continued as I began to pace the room. "If they had no food and depended on Adama's fleet for fuel, then how did they make it all the way back to the Colonies?" Everyone sat in silence as they thought about that question.

-

_MISSION OBJECTIVES::_

_1. COMPLETED_

_2. COMPLETED_

_3. RIG STATIONS FTL//3221.2573.0939_

_4. NEED TO KNOW PENDING COMPLETION OF OBJECTIVE 3_

_D'Anna was in the stations FTL core room. Thanks to the halon system, she was able to successfully escape the Craton, by making her way down to the lower pressure lock. She donned a pressure suit, went through the hatch, and jumped across the zero-g dock, all the way to the tower. She shimmied down the tower until she arrived at an exterior pressure hatch on the same level as the core room. This way she didn't have to spend thirty minutes crawling through the station._

_She had accessed the room easily without opposition. Sadly though, she had to kill two young ladies who were doing their daily checklist of the spinners when they caught her sitting at an FTL relay terminal. _

_D'Anna sat at the terminal, and was programing a set of jump coordinates with two dead bodies next to her. When she was finished, she pressed enter. The result was the activation of all eight spinners as they begun to charge the FTL._

_D'Anna closed her eyes and sighed. Objective four just came into her memory. While she didn't care to kill humans, she didn't mind doing it either. She would just prefer not to. In order to complete her last objective, she would need to be in FTB CIC. Carrying out the objective would surely result in her death, but once the station jumped, that would be okay. _

_-_

"D'Anna said the crew was already dead from radiation poisoning," said Beverley.

"Yeah," I responded. "But even the Captains logs mention the food and fuel problem. And if you compare the time stamps with the flight recorder, they ran out of fuel just as they jumped into orbit of Scorpia. That is more than lucky."

"That's just down right too lucky," added Tinker in realization.

"I want to talk to everyone you just picked up Pam. I want to know who found this, starting with Biers. I don't think this a coincidence. . ." I trailed off again. This time I heard a hum. It took Tinker, Beverley and I less than a second to realize what it was.

"We're spinning up," we all said in unison.

Right after we said that, a digital alarm sounded through the speakers in the ceiling. It was followed by the verbal message, _"Set condition two throughout the station. I repeat, set condition two throughout the station. All military personnel report to your designated ships and stations for further instruction. Admiral Cody to FTB CIC. Admiral Cody to FTB CIC."_

All of us left the room in a quick pace that got us to FTB CIC in less than a minute.

-

"SITREP?" I asked while walking up to the lighted information management table. My eyes were glued to the DRADIS console. I was expecting to see a fleet of Basestars at our doorstep, why else would the Watch Officer fire up the FTL?

_"Spinners are at one hundred percent. The Battlestar FTL's are catching up."_

_"The shell is charged."_

"Hold jump," instructed Tinker. He was as confused as me.

"Sirs!" yelled the Watch Officer from his tactical station next to the lighted table. Tinker and I walked over to him. Beverley picked up a phone on the edge of the table. "The core began charging up on its own."

"Initiate manual override. . ." I was cut off.

"Admiral," said the Watch Officer. "We have tried both manual and local override. The slave computer that connects the FTL to the CIC is being virtually blocked from the source."

"Tinker, get Slaton down here," I ordered. Tinker walked over to the lighted table and picked up a phone.

"Also," added the Watch Officer. "The technicians who are trying to override the FTL from the slave computer have reported two dead maintenance workers at an FTL relay terminal."

"Admiral," said Tinker as he hung the phone back on the table. I turned to look at him, "that was the Craton. They found a dead body outside the CIC. It was the young man you asked to escort Major Biers to the Athena."

"Athena hasn't seen Biers," added Beverley as she hung up her phone.

"Where are we jumping?" I asked to the room in general as I walked over to look up at the DRADIS console.

"The FTL has coded the coordinates," answered Tinker as he looked at the Navigation Console.

_"Battlestars are charged and ready. The clock is counting down from one minute."_

I had a terrible realization, "she is delivering us to the Cylons."

"Who?" asked Beverley.

"Isn't it obvious, Biers!" yelled Tinker.

"What about her?" yelled Beverley back.

"You brought a Cylon on board!" yelled Tinker.

So much was happening so fast. Just a few hours ago I was awakened in my room to go save the Athena, and now it seems those actions helped to spawn the predicament I found myself in.

"Enough!" I yelled. It shut the Commanders up and gained the attention of everyone in the room. "Like it or not we are jumping in. . .forty seconds." I turned to look at the communication section, "go to action stations, set condition one. Alert security to the Humanoid-Cylon on board. Tell the Oceanus to standby to go into battle." I turned to the lighted table, "Beverley, we are going to need Athena in this fight. Tinker, that is the same for the Virgil. I know she is being overhauled, but you need to get down there and do what you can to get her up and running, especially her Vipers." They both ran out of the room once I gave them their orders.

_"Jump in thirty seconds."_

_"Action stations, action stations. Set condition one throughout the station. Set condition one throughout the station. All military personnel, report to your designated ships and stations. Athena, Craton, Oceanus, and Virgil, emergency prep for battle conditions."_

Another digital alert sounded over the speakers. This would mark the first time in two years we had ever gone to condition one.

"Admiral. . ."

I heard an accented voice call my rank.

_"Jump in twenty seconds."_

I heard hushed gasps around the CIC. Everyone was staring at the entrance hatch. I turned to look at the owner of the voice.

"Admiral Cody," it was Biers.

_"Jump in ten seconds."_

She was standing in the hatchway to the CIC wearing a maintenance pressure suit. In her hands was a military assault rifle. It was pointed at my head. No one, including me, was moving. We didn't dare give her an excuse to fire.

_"Jump in five."_

I felt my heart drop.

_"Four."_

I had been in that situation before, a Cylon pointing a gun at my head, and survived.

_"Three."_

"Why?" I asked. I saw the events of my life up to that moment.

_"Two."_

"It's nothing personal," she said.

_"One. Jump!"_

-

_The station jumped._

_-_

_"I'm Kara," she said. "Well. . . the Kara you know is apart of me."_

_The man and woman walked down the steps of the Opera House. "They look unhappy to see us," I said._

_"They don't want us effecting the fate of the future," said Kara. "Let's go Ryan."_

_We turned away from the Opera House. When I turned, I instantly found myself somewhere else, like a dream. I was standing in the middle of an empty city. Skyscrapers towered all around me. I was in the middle of the road, at a four way intersection. "Where am I?"_

_"Don't you recognize where you grew up?" asked Kara. She was wearing her blue officer duty uniform. She had the rank of Captain on her collar._

_I noticed I was also wearing my blue officer duty uniform with my rank as Admiral. I looked around the intersection and recognition struck me. "I'm home." I was in the middle of downtown Roma, the Eastern Continent Capital on Picon._

_"No Ryan. This is not your home. You are about to go home."_

_I stared at Kara. "What do you mean by. . ."_

_-_

_The station reappeared. Everything was calm._

_-_

I was dizzy again, and was about to fall, "D'Anna!" I saw her aim the gun with distinction. "PLEASE!"

For a split second I felt a pressure on my face. Then I felt my soul reach out to the space around me.......................................................................................................................................

-

_The bullet impacted Ryan Cody's face, splattering his brains all over the CIC behind him. His limp, lifeless body fell to the deck._


	6. CRATON

CHAPTER SIX

---CRATON---

_The dock was huge and resembled a three leveled amphitheater. Except in the center of the dock was not an arena, but the dock tower. It raised to a height equal to that of the outer ring, which was also the top level ring. The top level ring was for parking of small space craft and could accommodate midsized ships. The middle level ring was for the Battlecruisers, Battleships, and midsized to large transports. The lower level ring, which was also at the base of the tower, was only for Battlestars. _

_The Craton was docked on the middle level ring. She was in between the Battleship Athena and an Intersun Passenger Cruiser. The Craton amazingly resembled a miniature Battlestar without the flightpods. She was being held in place by four clamps that physically grabbed onto the 'hard dock' points. Those were on the forward 'alligator head' and on two of the sublight pods. Her nose was facing away from the tower. Various cables and metal connectors linked the Craton's systems to the station. Two long accordion-like retractable walkways connected to two hatches on Cratons starboard side._

_Inside the Craton, at the heart of the ship, was the Network Administration Office. The NAO was the center access point for the heavy amount of automation the ship required. The Central Command Computer, or C3, rested in there. The C3 was the sole point of contact between the CIC and the rest of the ship. That was why the NAO sat directly beneath the CIC and was only accessible from it. The actual C3 sat directly in the middle of the tiny room surrounded by computer screens. Cables ran down from the ceiling, out from walls, and up from the floor and connected to the C3. The room was an organized chaos of technical innovation. _

_Inside the NAO, on all the C3 status screens, was a program waiting to begin. The words were flashing in red._

**~PROGRAM 7B~**

****LOCKED IN****

_The C3 reset its internal jump clock when it detected FTB had initiated FTL. Once the jump was completed, 7B started. _

**~PROGRAM 7B~**

**XMIT LOC. . .**

_**completed**_

**REC'G FILE. . .**

_**download in progress**_

_At the moment of the download from the unknown source, all the computer screens began to vertically scroll red symbols. After a few seconds of download, half the computer screens displayed horizontally scrolling red ones and zeros. _

_**completed**_

** DECRYP. . .**

_**est. 7 seconds**_

_Then all the screens began to horizontally scroll red ones and zeros. Then, each screen began to, one by one, stop scrolling the numbers._

_**completed**_

**COMP'G**

_**completed**_

_**EXECUTING. . .**_

_-_

_Inside the Craton's CIC, all the computer and DRADIS screens turned off. Then the lights shut off, and the emergency lights kicked in. Everyone inside the CIC, who were busy preparing the ship to un-dock and go into battle, stopped in their places and looked up at the emergency lights. No body moved. Everyone listened. Lt. Rivers Dyson, the shift Watch Officer, held a clipboard at the information management table. He did not know what to make of the power loss._

_But just before he could give an order, a sound caught everyone's attention. It was a low hiss. Dyson followed the sound to the wall of the CIC, adjacent the entryway. The sound was coming from the air vents. Except, the noise was not from air entering the CIC, but it was from air being sucked out of the CIC. Dyson opened his mouth to order an evacuation but the doors to the CIC slid shut and locked. Simultaneously the hiss got louder. Dyson drew his side arm to blast through the glass on the entryway hatch, but he felt light headed. _

_Just then a loud pop was heard. It was followed by the room instantly dropping in temperature and fogging over. Then the fog was gone, and the room was freezing. Dyson felt a pressure on his lungs to exhale. He did, as did everyone else in the room. Simultaneously, everyone in the CIC collapsed to the deck. Dyson, with his last moments of consciousness, lifted his gun to the hatch. Just as blackness encompassed his vision, he fired at the glass, and missed. Everyone quickly succumbed to their fate._

_-_

_All over the Battlecruiser, hatches sealed shut as the computer virus pumped the atmosphere out of the ship, killing everyone on board. When the virus detected no more movement within the vessel, it began to clone copies of itself and transmitted those copies to any interface capable. However, it detected no networks in range and was unable to complete that portion of its programming. So, instead, it continued with its main purpose: DESTROY FTB._

_-_

_The clamps holding Craton in place were locally controlled by dock operators assigned to the middle level ring. No signal could be transmitted to release the clamps. They had to be released by a careful ballet of lever pulling and button pushing by a human being. When Craton's automation failed to release the clamps, secondary measures activated._

_Craton fired its vertical RCS and attempted to pull itself loose. In the process, it damaged its hard dock points. When that failed, Craton activated her point defense guns on the port and starboard recesses. The guns targeted the four clamps and fired. The result was instant as the clamps disintegrated into a thousand pieces of flying metal scattered across the dock. The destruction of each clamp was accompanied by a momentary fireball-explosion as the residual air was used up by the chemical reaction. _

_The instant the clamps were destroyed, the RCS was able to lift Craton off its cradle, bending, buckling, and pulling the metal, hose, and wire connections along the way. The guns targeted the remaining connections to the ship and destroyed them. Craton was now fully autonomous, and floated independently inside FTB's dock. Her guns targeted the closest threat in range, the Battleship Athena._

_/ / / Pamela Beverley \ \ \_

_-_

_Her Story_

We were running towards the service lift. We had just ran out of FTB CIC and were trying to get to our ships. Mine was the Athena, and Tinkers was the Virgil. Admiral Cody just ordered us to Action Stations, but Tinker and I couldn't do that until we maneuvered through the labyrinth of old rusted corridors that lined the way to our ships. At a dead run, it was going to take me 20 minutes to get to Athena on the middle level ring. I envied Tinker. He just had to take the lift up a few stories to the lower level ring and from there he was five minutes to Virgil's CIC.

The station jumped. I felt a spinning vertigo sensation as the station reappeared. We made it to the lift. Tinker pushed a black rubber disk on the rusted wall. I heard the lift move from several stories up. I needed to take the lift down to the lateral causeway that linked the tower corridors with the section of FTB that Athena had docked on.

We heard a rifle discharge. If echoed down the corridor from the direction of the CIC. We both turned and looked at the tunnel of orange, red, and brown rust behind us. I was certain we heard a gun shot and one of us had to check on it, we just had to!

"We should go back and check," I said while resting my left hand on the sidearm that was not there. I subconsciously did this when I was scared. It was an old habit.

"We have to get to our ships," said Tinker. "If we just jumped into a Cylon trap, we need Virgil's Vipers and her guns."

"One of us has to go back!" I proclaimed.

Tinker sighed loudly. "Very well, you go. When I get to my CIC I'll give your XO a call and inform them, hopefully they can get the checklist completed just as you arrive. Beverly I have to get Virgil up and running, or we don't stand a chance." The lift arrived and Tinker had already pulled open the garage style doors.

"Okay," I said turning back to run down the corridor. I was worried to go by myself, but I agreed with Tinkers justification. Then gunshots rang out from the direction of the CIC. Now I was terrified. "Matt," I whispered. I was not moving.

Tinker stepped into the lift. "Good luck Bev." Then he gave me a slight push, because I was standing in the opening of the lift. The elevator doors shut with a series of loud thuds and locks and then it was on the move up to the lower level ring.

I had to remind myself I was a Colonial Fleet Commander. I had to be brave. I ran down the corridor. The run took my breath away. I increased my speed and arrived quickly.

In the hatchway of the CIC, in a pool of her own blood, rested the late D'anna Biers with bullet holes through her chest and skull. Inside the CIC were confused and frightened people. I looked around for Cody. I saw two technicians dead on the floor, obviously from D'anna's shots. I saw shell casings all over the deck from the few people in the room who had guns. Then I saw Cody's body, lifeless on the deck with bits of brain and skull splattered on the bulkhead and deck behind him.

I had no care to examine Cody, I knew he was dead and that was that. But with Cody dead, I needed to get this station to safety. I looked over to Damage Control. They were in a confused state just staring at the dead bodies around them, "HEY!" That got their attention. "Get a team up to the FTL and have them fix the frakking thing." They began to work.

"Bring DRADIS up please!" I yelled impatiently. The computer screens in the CIC were blank.

"The computer has been reset," said the Watch Officer. "It is going to take three minutes to get DRADIS booted up."

"Three minutes!" I proclaimed inconveniently.

"It's an old computer system Commander," added the Watch Officer with attitude.

"What the hell is going on?" yelled Chief Councilor Jacobs as he entered the room.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. I really didn't have time for this. "Put me through to Athena," I ordered to the communication center.

"Where is Admiral Cody! Why have we jumped! Why are we at Action Stations?" continued Jacobs.

"No response from Athena Commander," said the communications specialist.

"Why are you in Command? Where is Commander Tinker?" continued Jacobs.

"Then put me through to Virgil," I ordered. I looked over to Damage Control, "Also, get all the teams you can to assist Virgil. We have to get her un-docked and ready to fly A.S.A.P."

"Virgil? What is going on Commander?" asked Jacobs.

"We have been sabotaged you idiot!" I exclaimed. Jacobs closed his mouth and stepped back. My outburst had shocked him. "The Admiral is dead!" I yelled as I pointed to his body. "And the Cylon," I continued as I pointed to Biers, "has jumped us into a Cylon trap! I need every able body manning the weapons and helping to get Virgil disconnected! You fat frakking. . ."

I heard a gasp and stopped. David Slaton had appeared in the CIC, and ran over to Cody. "No, no, no, no, no. No! No!" Tears began to stream down Slaton's face. He knelt down by Cody and held his hand. "No, no, no, no." Then Slaton placed Cody's lifeless hand on his own face. Right then I understood. I finally knew why Cody tolerated Slaton's insubordinate attitude. I was shocked I never saw it before. But then I realized, no body saw it before. This was a total mystery to us during these last few years we have lived here. Something Cody once told me popped into my mind, _"we are all meant to find someone to love Bev. I know how you feel about me, but I can't return those feelings. Not for the reasons you believe you know, but for reasons no one can see." _I felt like a fool.

"Virgil actual is on the line," said the communication specialist.

I was pulled back into reality. My personal feelings about the scene with Cody and Slaton would have to wait. I picked up a corded phone, "Virgil, FTB actual. Matt, our DRADIS is down for another two minutes. Can you patch into the exterior relays?"

_"Bev, Craton has been. . ."_ then static filled the line.

"What happened?" I asked the communications specialist.

"The line has been cut," answered the specialist.

"Between receiver relay twenty seven and twenty nine," added Damage Control.

"Does anyone have a short range wireless?" I asked.

"Commander?" asked the specialist. I nodded. "We are receiving reports from all over the station. Sounds of explosions are echoing throughout FTB."

"Where are they coming from?" I asked.

"Damage alarms from the dock!" yelled Damage Control.

I walked over to the Watch Officers station, "can you bring up the dock's internal security grid?" He obliged. I remember Tinkers words: _Craton has been. _Pull up the video on Craton, live feed." The slow computer processed the request, and took three whole seconds to begin to stream the live video to the monitor. "FRAK!"

-

_Craton's guns targeted the Battleship Athena and attempted to fire. However the firing mechanism didn't trigger. The virus tried several times to execute Athena, but the guns would not fire. So the virus pointed its guns at the Intersun Passenger Cruiser and tried to fire, but again could not. The virus pointed its Point Defense Guns back at the Athena, and had no luck in firing. Then the virus decided to roll just enough to acquire a firing solution on Athena using Craton's Gun Turret Batteries (the larger point defense guns). This was also met with no luck._

_-_

"Why isn't she firing?" I asked out loud to the room as we all watched the video feed from the dock.

"She can't," answered Slaton. We all looked at him as he stood up and walked away from Cody's body. Slaton continued to talk as he wiped tears from his face, "Ryan and I decided to place safety features on Craton in case we ever lead the fleet into a close quartered fight with more than one ship." He walked up to the lighted information management table, reached under the table, and retrieved Craton's layout schematic. He rolled the transparent schematic on the lighted table. I, along with the Watch Officer and Jacobs, stood around the table. "Because of the Cylons understanding of the highly advanced Command Navigation Program, we had to re-write a lot of Cratons base code. That way she wouldn't be easily accessible by a modified Cylon virus. But when you tamper with a source base code, you have to re-write, or build new programs to control each echelon placed on top of that. When we got to the guns," he pointed to the weapons around the ship, "we realized that although we were good at writing programs, there still was a chance the automation would turn on us."

"You worried about a virus?" asked Jacobs.

"We initially worried about a virus," answered Slaton. "But we never thought, that after we rewrote the base code, the Cylons would be able to infiltrate the base code, but we considered they might be able to access one of the higher echelons. What we worried about was the automation being tampered with and being used to lock on to the Vipers during a battle. Our automation was good, but those targeting computers are on their own dedicated network, and can not have much digital security encryption."

"Why?" asked Jacobs. I glared at Jacobs. I wished he would shut up.

"The targeting computers need speed. High amounts of security lower that speed. So we had to devise a whole new way of visual and electronic source acquisition for the targeting sensors that could work, even with targeting tampering."

"And you did it?" I asked.

"No," said Slaton. "We couldn't. It was too complicated. So we added a fail-safe mechanism in a four tier system. First, the targeting computers have to be activated from the source, which the virus has already found a way to do. Second, DRADIS must read the IFF of an object and if it is not broadcasting, consider it neutral. Mind you, whether friendly or not, it does not matter just as long as it is transmitting a DRADIS sweep. Third, visual source confirmation of enemy ships can override the second tier but must confirm the second tier. And fourth, activation override from CIC can override all automation fail-safes."

"What does that mean?" asked Jacobs.

"That the first three tiers can be overridden by the Admiral's, XO's, or Weapons Officer magnetic key. And because you require a person to insert that key into the weapons terminal, the virus is unable to fire on the Athena. It is a physical switch that must manipulated."

"Wait, she already fired to break loose!" I proclaimed. I was smug that I found an error in his logic.

"Then the dock connections must of still been attached," answered David. "Those connections are old and designed for older ships so they have the unfortunate side effect of giving a few systems local access transient faults. That is the only way the guns could have possibly fired."

"And your absolutely positive the virus can't break this override code?" asked Jacobs. I sighed. I wish Jacobs would just listen to the man.

"100%," said Slaton.

-

_In Craton's NAO, on the computer screens, numbers were scrolling and schematics were shuffling. The C3 processor was maxed out as the virus looked for a work around to the fail-safe. . ._

_. . .it found it!_


	7. OCEANUS

CHAPTER SEVEN

---OCEANUS---

_The virus rewrote the override code that was inhibiting it from firing, and then successfully found a network of pathways that allowed for the bypass of the Weapons Terminal. The only problem was the system of circuit highways it now used as a bypass was not designed to handle the electrical load required for controlling the automation. Craton could fire its guns, but only a few of them at any one time or the circuits would melt and fuses would blow due to the current being forced through them. _

_The virus activated half the odd number guns around the ship. Craton reacquired Athena, and fired! _

_-_

We watched the live video feed in horror as Craton shot up my battleship. I was speechless. I only hoped Athena was able to quickly mount a defense. After all, Athena was heavily armed and already manned. Athena was older than Craton, considerably. We pushed her back into service once we found her here in FTB. Athena was one of the Original Class Battleships that worked with the Original Class Battlestars back during the first Cylon War. Her systems were not networked and she was built tuff.

-

_Craton was firing only a handful of guns at Athena, but the effect was instant. Tiny explosions and breaches popped up along Athena's dorsal hull. Atmosphere sprayed out of the bullet holes that littered the ship. Personnel, in maintenance pressure suits working outside the ship, ran for cover. There was no sound in the dock because there was no atmosphere, but there were many concussive ripples from the bullet impacts and small explosions. _

_Athena was taking a light pounding. Without Craton using all her guns, Athena would survive the assault. Then the docking clamps holding Athena released, and the hose connections and walkways retracted. Athena ignited her maneuvering thrusters and lifted off her cradle. As she raised above the dock, in level with Craton, she changed her attitude and pointed her nose at Craton. Simultaneously, all her point defense guns began firing as she attempted to acquire Craton in her forward bow cannons. _

_The virus saw this and began to move the ship. It attempted to keep Craton away from Athena's bow batteries. Those forward cannons were more powerful than the Point Defense Guns and Turret Batteries and were more than capable of damaging Craton. As Craton maneuvered away from Athena's bow, she switched to firing the guns on the section pointed towards Athena. The virus needed to use Craton's Turret Batteries and Main Forward Batteries, but first it had to find more pathways to reroute the power necessary to do it, or the whole network grid would just fry. If it could find enough electronic pathways, then, theoretically, the virus would be able to divide the electrical load that was required to control all the weapons. _

_-_

"Put the dock on high alert and sound the preparation for evacuation. Do we have any way to help Athena?" I asked while standing at the lighted table.

"There are no weapons in the dock Commander," responded the Watch Officer. "DRADIS is up!" Just then DRADIS came back online.

_"All civilian personnel, this is an e-vac-prep-or-der. All civilians are to report to their __designated drill captains"_

I waited for DRADIS to sweep the surrounding region. As I waited for DRADIS to do its job, I heard the echo of faint bullets impacting the tower. The impacts were irrational and it was apparent the tower was not Craton's target, not yet anyway. Then we heard blips on the DRADIS console, followed by red contacts appearing on the screen. "Frak. Someone get me a damn wireless!" I yelled.

"Here Commander," said Slaton as he handed me the radio that was clipped to his waist. I was beginning to see why Cody kept him around, other than the obvious.

"Someone get me Virgil's frequency!" I yelled towards the communications center.

"Three thirty four seven five," responded Slaton. "That's Virgil's CIC."

I smiled as I punched in the frequency into the radio. I was beginning to like David. As soon as I entered the frequency, I talked, "Virgil, FTB, over." I waited. "Battlestar Virgil, this is FTB CIC, come in?"

The static was filled with a transmission, _"Bev, it's Matt, we are a few minutes from being up and running. My Pilots are waiting to help Athena, but they can't takeoff while the launch tubes are so close to the other Battlestars." _That made sense because Virgil was parked between the original Battlestars Solaria and Universal.

"Great Matt, but Craton is the least of our problems." I looked up at DRADIS. "We have two Cylon Raiders approaching FTB. They are a few minutes out from weapons range." Just then the Raiders disappeared. "Standby one."

_"We just pulled up the exterior relays, I saw them. They are probably jumping back to the main fleet to verify our position," _said Matt.

"I agree," I continued. "Get your ass disconnected and out of the station."

_"We're trying Bev, but I'm beginning to think you like my ass." _Then he hung up.

I smiled at the attempt at humor in the dire situation we were in, but the video feed from the dock sucked out any happiness I had.

-

_The two vessels danced around the dock, like electrons on opposite sides of a nucleus. Between them was the dock tower. Above the dock tower was a barrier made up of Athena's flak ammunition, and bullet fragments. Making its way through the barrier was a fraction of the bullets being fired by either side._

_On Craton, the virus found a series of circuit pathways to split up the electrical load in order to control all the weapons. The first command the virus gave was to launch Craton's nuclear missiles. After the virus learned all the missile tubes were empty, it began systematically shooting at everything around it. _

_Craton's Point Defense Guns targeted all the small and medium transports along the top level ring. It didn't take much for the bullets to destroy the unarmored spaceships. Explosion after explosion rippled around the top level as transport after transport was destroyed while they rested helplessly in their cradles. _

_Craton's Turret Batteries targeted Athena and fired. Unlike Athena, Craton was not firing flak ammunition to help protect from the oncoming barrage of bullets. Instead, Craton was firing high-explosive anti-capital ship shells. The anti-capital shells punched through the black veil of flak shards hovering over the dock tower, and slammed right into Athena's port nose! The impacts halted Athena from her forward propulsion because it pushed her starboard side into the nearby canyon wall. _

_The impact with the dock wall inside FTB caused Athena to erupt with pressure explosions along her starboard bow. She sunk towards the top level ring from the inertia caused by the explosions all the while firing what weapons she could at Craton. Athena's damage from the port bow was too extensive to revive the weapons near that section, so her Main Forward Batteries were non-functional. However, the rest of her guns worked, and she proceeded to fire on Craton while she was being gunned down like a wounded animal._

_Craton changed direction. The virus calculated Athena had a 71% chance of still being operable, and with Athena being fully manned, armed and in position to strike easily, the virus determined Athena was the most threat inside the dock by 59%. Instead of orbiting the dock tower, Craton shifted in a violent turn, and steamed head on, straight for Athena, determined to destroy the threat once and for all. _

_-_

"How the frak did you let the Cylons take Craton?" Jacobs asked angrily to Slaton.

Slaton stuttered a bit, but responded with affirmation, "we, we, we, I, we wrote, a program, you can't, ah! We wiped the mainframe and rebuilt the system using a new base code. All the security and transport protocols were modified. Craton is. . . _was_ the most network secure ship. There is no way. . ."

I didn't like Jacobs, but I saw the reason for his question. It was I who interrupted Slaton, "but they did David. How? How would you do it? Think like a Cylon." I looked back up at the DRADIS screen. Nothing was on the screen, and I needed that assurance.

"The only way," continued Slaton, "for the Cylons to break in and rewrite Cratons code to use the ship like they are is if, _and only if_, a program was already on the system to allow them to do that, and that is not possible!"

"Kid, I swear to the Gods I will hold you accountable for this if you don't figure it out!" yelled Jacobs.

Slaton was not phased by his comments. I looked back at the live feed from the dock. My heart sank. My ship was about to be destroyed.

_-_

_Craton hovered perpendicular next to the crippled Athena. Craton adjusted her attitude in order to align her main forward batteries in a linear path with Athena's engine core. The anti-capital ship shells loaded with the an automated sequence into the bow batteries. The virus took into account the Athena's stationary location and distance and deemed the need for a firing solution was less than 20%, so that meant it would take the chance to fire blind, without the solution._

_-_

Everyone in the CIC was glued to the dock video feed. Then we heard a crackle over the hand held wireless that was laying on the lighted table. Everyone's attention immediately shifted to the wireless transmission, _"FTB, Oceanus, we got this mother frakker!" _We looked back up to the video feed.

-

_The Battlecruiser Oceanus had disconnected from her cradle, but did not move off it. Instead, in order to avoid Craton's attention, Oceanus waited for the perfect moment to hit her. The moment arrived as Craton was pointed at Athena about to strike. The carefully timed events executed. Oceanus ignited her ventral thrusters to full power, causing a quick ascent straight up without losing her horizontal attitude relative to the dock._

_Oceanus' speed was too much to slow her in time enough to acquire Craton in her bow cannons. Instead, as to achieve surprise, she kept her speed and had already programed a firing solution that would triggered the bow cannons automatically as she passed Craton's engines. The shells left Oceanus' bow cannons and obliterated Cratons engine pods._

_The instant Oceanus' shells hit Craton, the resulting impact cause Craton to shift her horizontal tilt. Craton tilted to where her nose was now pointed just over Athena, at the dock wall. This rapid movement coincided with Craton firing her main forward batteries. The anti-capital rounds barely missed Athena and ended up hitting one of the Integrity Shell's main lateral supports. _

_Oceanus' slowed as she approached the overhead entry and exit tunnel. Simultaneously, Craton's engine core went critical and exploded. The explosion was massive as Craton was obliterated in a flash of light. The entire station shook. The concussive shock-wave hurt Athena the most, as she was pressed and bent into the obliterated integrity lateral support. Athena was totaled._

_Oceanus caught the end of the concussive blast. The result added a variable the helmsman didn't account for in attempting to slow Oceanus before she hit the dock ceiling. Instead of Oceanus slowing to a stop after her rapid vertical ascent, the shock-wave pushed against her and caused her dorsal hull to impact the overhead dock ceiling. Rocks and dust floated away from the impact, and Oceanus lost positive control and began to spiral down onto the top level ring. _

_On the top, middle, and lower level rings, in the omnidirectional range of the explosive shock-wave, every ship was damaged. The smaller ships exploded, while the medium and large transports flipped or tilted with explosions on them. The Battlestar in the range of the shock-wave buckled. _

_-_

We all fell over. I hit my head on the table and was bleeding. The overhead DRADIS console came crashing down onto the lighted table. Glass maps and grids shattered by the force. People were screaming and yelling. Dust, debris and shards of metal fell down from the rusted ceiling. The lights flickered and exploded. I heard the digital alarm go silent as I felt the force of something massive hitting the dock tower. I could only assume it was the remains of the Battlecruiser Craton. I felt someone grab my hand. When I looked, I saw it was David.

I was scared. But, through the loud chaos, I heard David say something very low. It caught my attention because it occurred to me he was only saying it because it was loud and he thought no one could hear him. "Only fitting, you're dead, and you take your ship with you. You two had a relationship I never understood. Bye my friend." Then I saw him shed a tear as he stared at Cody's body that was still laying in the CIC.


	8. BATTLE

CHAPTER EIGHT

---BATTLE---

_ "The Cylon War is long over. Yet we must not forget the reasons why so many were asked to sacrifice so much in the cause of freedom." The few hundred people in the starboard landing bay listened to the aging Commander of the aging Battlestar give his speech. "The values we fought for are still worth preserving today. The cost of wearing the uniform can be high, but sometimes it's too high. . ." Now this was interesting._

_ "You know. . . we fought the Cylons to save ourselves from extinction, but we never answered the question. . . why? Why are we as a people worth saving?. . . Look at us. We tell ourselves we're noble, intelligent creatures. Children of the Lords of Kobol. But we'll still let people go to bed hungry because it costs too much to feed the poor. . . we still commit murder for greed or spite or jealousy. . . and we visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to take responsibility for what we've done." Okay, now it is boring again._

_ "Like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play god. Create life. And when that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it wasn't really our fault, not really. It was the Cylons that were flawed. . . but the truth is. . . we're the flawed creation. We're the ones that tried to manufacture life and make it serve us. . . but you don't play God and then wipe your hands of what you've created. Sooner or later. . . the day comes when you can't hide from what you've done anymore. . . A day of reckoning."_

_ I sighed. The speech was a downer and I didn't want to be here. My transport, the Chronicle, a science vessel, was asked to participate in Galactica's decommissioning ceremony. The choice to participate was not ours. The Minister of Science asked us to participate because MoD Public Affairs needed the hundred scientist we had on board as extra bodies for the ceremony. The request from the Science Minister only confirmed the rumors I heard, Galactica was an old bucket that was nothing but a relic from a time long ago and was already long forgotten._

_ My scientist were not happy about being pulled off our deep space research mission. We were passing through the area and headed for the Prolmar sector. Our mission was funded by the Colonial Religious Council. Our goal was to find Kobol, the mythical planet that held the colonies before the legendary exodus. We had nothing to go on but scripture, and I suspected that we would find nothing. I wanted to get started, but to get pulled off our mission before we even left the system? I was not happy._

_ Everyone gave- Commander Adams? . . it might be Adama. . . -everyone gave Commander Adama a hearty applause. After the ceremony, I stood and began to leave when I heard my name. _

_ "Captain Beverley?" asked a female voice._

_ In the thick of the crowd of scattering uniforms and civilians, I turned and smiled. I wanted to leave, but now I had to play the nice gal, "Madam Secretary!" I laughed in surprise and gave her what she wanted, a friendly conversation._

_ "Johanna said you would be joining us, I am so pleased to get to speak to you," said the female Secretary._

_ "Minister Peters asked us this morning and we were all too happy to help Madam Secretary," I responded while I shook her hand. _

_ "Please, call me Laura," she said informally. _

_ I was no longer a government official nor a member of the Colonial Military, so I obliged in calling her Laura. "Everyone calls me Bev." _

_ We began to walk through the mingling crowd that had started to drink champagne and eat cheese and crackers. I felt awkward and began small talk, "interesting speech the man gave."_

_ Laura smiled, "Commander Adama! He is something else. I am absolutely positive he does not like me."_

_ "Come now Laura," I chuckled, "he might be the man you marry one day!"_

_ She stopped and laughed out loud, "that would be something."_

_ "Excuse me," said a husky male voice from behind us. "Secretary Roslin?"_

_ We both turned. The man talking was older with blue eyes. His uniform was decorated and I could see he served in the Cylon War. His rank pins were polished and they twinkled in the light. "Commander Adama." answered Laura. Adama looked at me and Laura introduced us, "Commander Adama, this is Captain Pamela Beverley of the science vessel Chronicle. Bev, this is Commander Bill Adama of the Battlestar Galactica."_

_ We shook hands. "Commander," I said, "my deepest respect. To retire a ship that served to protect so many for so long must be a huge honor."_

_ Adama returned my handshake and then looked to Laura, "Madam Secretary, I want to thank you for coming all the way out here to take part in the decommissioning. It has been a privilege hosting your visit. I wish you luck in your future endeavors." With that he shook Laura's hand, then nodded towards me, and left us. _

_ "Wow" I responded._

_ Laura laughed, "you see, he hates me!" We both laughed and continued to walk down the massive hanger deck that was filled with people. "I wanted to talk to you because I am excited for your mission."_

_ "Thanks, we were excited too," I responded with contempt. I wanted to be out there, not here._

_ "It was I who ordered Johanna to volun-tell you here. It was the only time I would get to speak with you before you all disappear on your deep space mission for the next few years."_

_ "We are not the only people who have gone looking for Kobol, Laura."_

_ "True," said Laura, "but you are the first to do it with government funds and the most advanced equipment on the most advanced ship ever built with the most intellectual minds of our generation. I have faith you will find something."_

_ "Laura, I never took you as religious."_

_ She scuffed. "I'm not, sometimes I can't stop being a politician. Sorry. Truthfully," she stopped and looked me in the eyes, "I wanted to talk to you about something very important. About what happened. The President wanted me to ask if. . ."_

_ I held up my hand to stop her. I looked around to make sure we were out of earshot of the surrounding people. I lowered my voice, "Laura, I got what I wanted. The only way I was getting this mission funded by the government was with a golden opportunity like the one I got." Laura stopped smiling. "I am not insensitive to the situation. And I am sorry that makes you worry. But Laura," I looked around again. After I was sure no one could hear, I spoke, "I wasn't the one who was frakking President Adar."_

_-_

I woke up. Slaton was shaking me. It was immediately clear I had passed out in the middle of the excitement. I suddenly realized I had felt more alive in the last three hours than in the past three years of my life on this station. I quickly remembered my unconscious memory. Why had I thought of Laura Roslin?

I shook it off and stood up. The room was a totaled. The dated computers, aged equipment, and primitive technology was destroyed. The DRADIS console was in pieces around the CIC. Wall panels were blown off their bulkheads. A center support beam that ran across the ceiling of the CIC had lost its integrity and fallen down. People were dead all around me, and others were hurt. I could only imagine what the fifteen thousand civilians below were going through.

I had so many questions: How did the virus take over Craton? Where did we jump? Are we in any danger? How did D'anna do all this? But I settled on a simple question, "situational report?" I did a double check of my extremities while I waited.

Slaton walked around the CIC. I assumed he was looking for an operable computer terminal, given that all the computers were blown. I was right. He did some tinkering by swapping monitors and circuit boards, but he was able to get one terminal working. I was hoovering over his shoulder when I realized it was pretty much just him and I in the CIC who were coherent and okay. Everyone else was dead, dying, or injured, except for one young kid.

He appeared seventeen and worked in the communications center. It was clear to me he was worried, but amazingly calm. The young man was just standing in the middle of the CIC looking around. Based on the way he was holding himself I sensed he was not in shock nor injured. He was just standing there. "Crewman!" I got his attention. His face and uniform were covered in electrical burns, but he was okay. "Get Virgil on the line," I ordered while handing him the wireless radio. My goal was to get him functioning.

"Okay, here we go," said Slaton. He pulled up the general status screen. "Life support is operable, barely. Civilian sectors are self contained and intact. The dock is a frakking mess though."

"What do we got?" I asked referring to the dock.

"Athena is bent in two and wedged in the canyon walls," responded Slaton. "Oceanus appears okay. They must have had a controlled crash onto the top level ring. Virgil has un-docked successfully and is currently making her way into the exit tunnel. The Original Battlestars are all okay. The remains of Craton have buckled two of the Battlestars from their berths, but they are still tied into the FTL. All the top level transports are destroyed, and more than half of the middle level transports are destroyed or overturned."

"Virgil is on her way out?" I asked.

"Affirmative," answered Slaton.

"I have Virgil Commander," said the young crewman behind me. "They are headed outside in preparation of a possible Cylon attack."

"Contact Oceanus, get them outside too," I ordered as I looked at the crewman. I saw he was flustered for a moment because he did not know how to program the hand held. _Frakking children_.

"Four fourteen three," yelled Slaton as he worked at the computer. It was obvious from the way he said it that it was Oceanus' CIC frequency. I saw Slaton was working on getting into the FTL computer. His fluid computer skills challenged my eye hand coordination and he was in the system in less than a minute.

"Oceanus is attempting to get air born," said the crewman.

"What is the possibility of an FTL jump?" I asked Slaton.

Slaton sighed and kept working at the computer. "I have good news and bad news and more bad news."

"Start with the bad news, then the good, and finally the more bad," I said, in an attempt at humor.

"The FTL computer is busted," said Slaton. That was bad. "I can jump us though, but we can only do it once, then we are dead in the water." The last light working in the CIC exploded sending sparks all over the room. The emergency lights kicked in, then they exploded. The red lights running along the deck plating illuminated. Everything was covered in a red glow that gave the shattered room a demonic feel.

"What?" I asked referring to the FTL. "Why?"

"Sending a direct set of coordinates into the FTL is easy, but the Integrity Shell is damaged beyond a timely repair. We can jump, but the jump will fracture the shell, taking the station's jump ability with it.

"Virgil is outside. DRADIS has twelve Basestars closing on FTB," said the crewman.

Slaton and I both turned and stared at the crewman. There was no way Virgil could hold off twelve base ships, even with Oceanus' help. And with Athena broken, Craton gone, and Metanira waiting at the old rendezvous. . . . "David, can you lock onto the Metanira's rendezvous coordinates?"

"Yeah, but by this time, wouldn't they be at our previous jump location?" asked Slaton.

"No, all ships have confidential procedures on a Lost-Contact situation." I looked at my watch. "The backup location is the polar orbit of Cairo."

"Cairo?" asked Slaton.

I could tell he was surprised. I was surprised he was surprised because I would have thought Cody had told him everything. Apparently not. I gained a little more respect for Cody.

"During our first year, it became crucial to maintain secrecy with this station. A problem with that was how could our ships find the station if we jumped randomly in an emergency? Several light houses were established around the system. They alternate based on variables. Cody made the variables real random crap like the time of day in Delphi minus the third letter in the pass-phrase. Stuff like that. So it was all based on a dependency in time and an independent outside location." I checked my watch again and did some minor calculations in my head, "yeah, it will be Cairo for the next few hours."

I saw Slaton roll his eyes and begin typing on the cracked keyboard. He hit enter dramatically. "Several spinners are damaged, but all the spinners still have a residual charge. A jump from here to Cairo will be possible for another twelve minutes."

"That seems to be our lucky number today," I said.

"Or unlucky," said Slaton.

"Cylons in range in thirty seconds. Oceanus is on her way out. Raider Wings are launching," said the crewman.

"Commander, once we get there, that's where we're staying. Are you sure about this?" asked Slaton.

-

_I was walking toward Galactica's port flight pod. The Chronicle was docked in there and was ready to leave. She only needed me, her Captain. As I walked, a young Lieutenant ran up from behind me. I kept walking as he spoke out of breath, "Captain Beverly, there is a problem. Your flight plan wasn't filed with __Cyrannus Traffic Control." _

_ I sighed. "Lieutenant, I am traveling outside the system. Why do I need a flight plan?"_

_ "Well. . ." stuttered the young man. "It is required. At the very least you can file the flight path you are taking to the edge of the system."_

_ I stopped walking and looked at him. "What is your name?"_

_ "Lieutenant Gaeta."_

_ "No, what is your name?" I asked again._

_ He swallowed, "Felix."_

_ "Well Felix, I am leading a team to find Kobol. We think it is in the Prolmar sector. I have no doubt extremist and atheist will try anything to stop us. You heard about the Caprica bombings and the Picon executions? I will not file a flight plan, nor will I tell you or anyone else how we are getting there." Gaeta wrote on his clipboard: CHRONICLE-BEVERLY-PROLMAR SEC-LOOK 4 KOBOL-WORRIED SABO-REFUSE FLIGHT PLAN. . . . WHY?_

_ "Yes ma'am," said Gaeta. I turned to continue walking when Gaeta grabbed my arm. I looked at him again. "One more thing Captain. Secretary Roslin asked me to give you this note."_

_ I read it. _

_**Pamela-**_

_**I know why you chose the Chronicle. You can't keep running from the problems in your life. Going to the ends of the universe will not get rid of what has happened. Please stay. **_

_ That might be true. I might not be able to keep running, but I knew this: running keeps you alive and standing still kills you. I wrote that thought on a note and handed it to Felix. "Send this to Roslin when you get a chance." _

_-_

"It doesn't matter David," I said. "When we get there, we are leaving this tomb. We have been here far too long." I turned to the crewman, "Tell Tinker and Paul 'the light house is lit. See you there.' David," I looked back at Slaton. "Jump us to Cairo."

"I'm going to need two minutes to get the FTL work around done," responded Slaton. Two minutes with twelve Basestars is an eternity.

-

_ The massive, Jupiter Class, Battlestar Virgil began its defense of FTB. Though, FTB was not without the capability to defend itself, because the entire surface of the tiny, comet sized, moon was covered with manually operated sentries. More powerful turret cannons were around the giant doors that retracted for ships to enter the station. The surface sentries began to establish a perimeter around the station with a combination of flak ammunition and bullets. In less than a second, the surface of the moon was obscured by clouds of metal shards that resembled black smoke._

_ Virgil launched both her Viper Wings. Originally, she had only one Wing that consisted of a hundred and twenty Vipers. With the resources of FTB, the Colonials had refurbished over five hundred Vipers. Those five hundred consisted of mark twos, fours, and fives. But the station did not have that many qualified pilots. So, to split the resources, Virgil was given another Viper Wing consisting of one hundred Vipers, and FTB was given a Viper Wing of two hundred Vipers. Virgil launched both her Viper Wings and FTB launched its Wing._

_ The Viper Wing from FTB (TANGO) had one job. Its sole duty was to protect the entrance tunnel to the dock. The Vipers were scattered through the tunnel, behind the opened doors. But that was tricky because when FTB jumped, the Vipers had to be connected to the station in some way, shape, or form, or they would be left behind and doomed to die if they survived the spatial displacement shock-wave. _

_ Virgil's first Viper Wing "Omega" was assigned the task of guarding the surface defense sentries around the station. Virgil's second Wing "Sierra" was split into two groups. "Sierra One" was to protect Virgil, while "Sierra Two" was to protect Oceanus. Oceanus had successfully exited the station and steamed beside Virgil. Together the ships would remain during the battle, side by side. Oceanus, a Venus Class Battlecruiser, was designed to work in tandem with a Battlestar. _

_ Even as all the logistics of the battle were coming together, as the Vipers aligned into formation, as other Vipers launched to get into battle formation, as Raptors flew out of FTB and Virgil's landing bays, and as the surface sentries began firing, the first wave of Cylon bullets and missiles had already hit the surface. A hundred Raiders had broken through FTB's engagement zone and were entangled in a ballet of death with Omega. _

_ Virgil, with Oceanus inverted underneath her, punched through a timed hole in the engagement perimeter and began steaming towards the first grouping of Basestars. Virgil and Oceanus' point defense guns created a barrier around the ships from Raiders, while Sierra One and Two swarmed around the two ships, like bees protecting their nest. The ships large turrets blasted shells towards the closest base ships. But even that wasn't enough. The ten Basestars moved to surround Virgil and Oceanus while the other two concentrated on FTB and began overwhelming the Colonial's defense. _

_ Virgil and Oceanus fired their forward main batteries, in unison, at the base ship directly in front of them. The combined fire power of the two punched through the base ship defense layer and slammed right into the ship's center axis. Explosions rippled through the base ship before it finally succumbed to a cataclysmic core breach and detonated in a brilliant flash of blue light. The shock wave from the exploding base ship jolted the nearby Basestar. While it did not fatally damage the other Basestar, the shock-wave did push the ship in a direct line of fire with Virgil and Oceanus._

_ Virgil and Oceanus fired their main forward batteries again and for the second time in fifteen seconds, another Cylon base ship exploded. But the other Cylon ships were already adapting to the attack. They had spread out their spacing and came behind the Colonials. Virgil and Oceanus began to come about. They had steamed far out from FTB and needed to head back. The Cylon base ships blocked their path, and surrounded them like wolves. The Raiders were overwhelming Sierra._

_ The Raider Wings attacking FTB were picking off Omega one by one. The inexperienced Colonial pilots tried their best to go toe to toe with the primal instinctive Raiders, but they had no luck. After the majority of Omega had been destroyed, the Raiders concentrated on the surface sentries. FTB began closing its retractable doors. The survivors of Omega heard the recall and headed toward the doors before they closed._

_ The layer of Vipers protecting Virgil and Oceanus, Sierra One and Two, were dwindling in numbers. The Cylons made one last fatal mistake when they tried to block the Colonial ships paths to FTB, and, in the process, another Basestar was destroyed. But the damage was not just on the Cylon side. The base ships remaining flanked the two Colonial war ships and cut down their defensive Viper layer. The shear number of missiles and shells being launched was no match for the defensive perimeter of the Colonial ships. _

_ Raiders had picked off a dozen of Oceanus' point defense guns. The resulting gap in coverage allowed for automated missiles to track onto Oceanus and hit her. The exploitation of the defensive hole worked. Missiles began impacting, one after the other, on Oceanus' dorsal hull. Sierra Two did its best to destroy the convoy of incoming missiles, but its dwindling numbers inhibited it from doing so. _

_ In the middle of the battle, FTB disappeared in a flash of light. Instantly its spatial displacement wave sucked in the surrounding space. Hundreds of Raiders, along with a dozen Vipers that were left behind, were pulled into one single point, the epicenter where FTB had been. Then, just as swiftly, the displacement wave rippled back in on its self, and a powerful shock-wave blasted out from its source. The resulting effect was magnificent. The hundreds of Raiders attacking the station all exploded in a sequence of blinking lights. Sadly, the left behind Vipers were destroyed also. _

_ Sierra One and Two began landing on Virgil. The Cylons took advantage and pressed their assault of the two Colonial war ships. During the two minute battle, Virgil had held a powerful defense against the multiple Basestars, but now that defense was failing. Just like Oceanus, the onslaught of missiles, bullets, and Raiders began to cripple Virgil. The Vipers quickly combat landed, and just as Virgil began seeing explosive decompressions, she jumped. _

_ Oceanus was half a second behind Virgil in the jump. The half a second was enough time for a golden missile to hit a golden spot on her hull just as the FTL initiated its virtual commands to jump the ship. Oceanus jumped, but her FTL computer was quickly overridden by a safety protocol. During her jump, an error appeared in the jump calculations. An error as simple as a one changing to a zero threw the jump calculation past the red line. With the error, the FTL computer now thought the jump coordinates were a few hundred light years away, but the safety protocols inhibited the fatal error and disengaged the jump the moment it initiated. The result: Oceanus disappeared from her location in the middle of the Cylon fleet, and then reappeared a few thousand meters from her previous location, right in the middle of one of the Basestars. _

_ Oceanus and the Basestar exploded. The combined shock-waves destroyed the surrounding Raiders. The shock-waves pushed the residual debris into two other base ships. A spear of Cylon base ship impacted one Basestar, while the engine pods from the battlecruiser impacted another Basestar. The impacts destroyed both base ships in the process. _


	9. FLEE

CHAPTER NINE

---FLEE---

_Cairo was a medium sized moon that orbited Euphrates, a gas giant at the edge of the system. The moon was used, for many decades, as a testing ground for weapons, specifically nukes. The lingering radiation from the moon, and the magnetic field from the gas giant, effectively cloaked any DRADIS signature. Orbiting the moon was a small, transport sized, vessel. She had Colonial markings and proudly displayed her designation: Metanira. She was a Destroyer. While she was covered with gun turrets, she lacked any anti-capital ship cannons. Being the last Destroyer in existence, her original purpose was to supply Battlestars in forward combat zones. Now, given her small DRADIS signature, speed, agility, and defensive ability, she was the Colonials eyes and ears inside the occupied Cyrannus System. _

_ FTB appeared from the jump inside Cairo's polar orbit. The instant the station appeared, fissures tore open along its equator. Dust and rocks resting on the surface ejected from the fissures into the surrounding space. A few dozen small explosions cascaded around the openings. Black smoke from the dock flowed out of the fissures._

_ Inside FTB, the Integrity Shell tore apart on the side opposite the Athena. Along the equatorial plane, the supports composing the shell tore, splintered, bent, and warped, sending hundreds of rocks from the canyon walls flying through the dock. Fissures opened through the canyon into space along the equator, which began to suck out the residual atmosphere, created by the smoke from the battle in the dock, that had pressurized when the exit tunnel doors closed. _

_ A few thousand meters from FTB, Virgil appeared. One of her engine pods was offline and smoking. Tiny fires covered her hull. A handful of turrets had been destroyed and sparked with electric current. Two Vipers, that had not stopped in time during their combat landing, had continued their landing momentum and slid off the flight deck and into space. _

_ Slightly behind Virgil, a spatial distortion field rippled with a bright flash, then collapsed back on itself. The flash was usually accompanied by a ship appearing from a jump, but nothing appeared. It was Oceanus' attempt at jumping out of the battle. Sadly, she would not be joining the fleet ever again._

_-_

The sounds of the shell warping and tearing itself apart echoed throughout the station. I was still standing behind Slaton when we exited the jump. I was amazed and surprised at how well we did at defending this place.

"That's it," said Slaton. "We're not going anywhere for a long time."

"No more jumps?" I asked.

"Not immediately, no," answered Slaton. "I have to consult with our core of engineers, but," Slaton pulled up some digital status screens. I had no idea how to read the screen of numbers. "It looks as though we might be able to repair the shell."

"Alright." I sighed then turned to the crewman holding the radio, "Signal Virgil, Oceanus, and Metanira, tell them we need help looking for survivors in the dock and repairing the station. I guess we will stay for the time being."

"No Oceanus," said Slaton.

I looked at Slaton then at the crewman, "Verify?"

"Virgil says they didn't jump out," said the crewman.

This had cost us three Battlecruisers. Would it cost anything else?

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

I looked toward the source of the beep.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

It appeared to be from coming from the FTL computer. The CIC was trashed and the only thing that appeared to be working was the emergency lights and the terminal Slaton was at. I was trying to look through the destroyed CIC at the source of the beep.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Slaton looked with me. We began walking in its direction.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

It was coming from the FTL computer! Slaton and I unburied the terminal. The screen was cracked but still worked. Through the flickering, on the monitor, Slaton tried to read the warning it was displaying. He typed fast on the broken keyboard. "Frak me."

"What is it?" I asked worried.

"D'Anna, she frakked us again."

"WHAT?" I asked.

"She rigged the FTL to deliver us to the Cylons. She also programed a back-up in case we escaped. The jump clock has started."

"You said we couldn't jump?" I asked confused.

"The FTL is working fine!" yelled Slaton because was angry and upset. "But the Integrity Shell is broken. If we jump, the station is going to tear itself into pieces! And even if part of the station survived the jump, the computer is going to jump us close to the Sun! I didn't even know you could get a lock that close."

"How can it do that?" I asked.

"All the safety protocols must have been overridden."

"How long?" I asked in a whisper.

Slaton typed on the broken keyboard. He sighed. He was scared. "We have fifteen minutes to evacuate the station."

I gasped. The shell was broken, the dock was in pieces, most of our transports were destroyed or damaged, and I had fifteen minutes to get us off the station.

"What do we do Commander?" asked Slaton.

I was lost in thought. I had to leave. We had to leave. There was no being here. But where to start?

"What do we do Commander?"

The ships were destroyed, people were probably injured all over the station. It would take fifteen minutes just to dock Virgil and begin evacuating people.

_"What do we do?"_

_-_

_ "What do we do Captain?" asked my executive officer. We had left Galactica several hours ago. We were well on our way to the edge of the system where we could prepare a safe calculation for interstellar jump. Traveling faster than light, or 'Jumping' was a process that did not happen lightly. Only when we had successfully left the massive solar system could we confidently plot a safe jump calculation. _

_ Hours after we left Galactica, the wireless band began to flood with reports of bombings all over the twelve colonies. In light of the confusion coming from the planets, I hacked into the Colonial Military Band. I read in shock the words that would forever change my life: ATTENTION ALL COLONIAL UNITS, CYLON ATTACK UNDERWAY. THIS IS NO DRILL._

_ "What do we do Captain?" asked my executive officer. I didn't know exactly what to tell him. _

_ "Who knows about this?" I asked my XO._

_ "Just you, me, and the communications officer. Why?" he asked._

_ "Disable all exterior lines of communication," I ordered. "No one broadcasts nor receives any data-links. You got that?" I asked harshly._

_ "Yes ma'am!" snapped my XO. _

_ I sat down at a communications terminal and connected to the Emergency Wireless Band. I began to hear chaotic reports from Colonial Warships: ATLANTIA DESTROYED. LIKE SOMEONE JUST SWITCHED HER OFF. VIPER SQUADRONS RENDERED USELESS. GROUND BASED DEFENSE HAS SHUTOFF. . . . PICON FLEET HEADQUARTERS DESTROYED._

_ I began to hyperventilate, then I got a hold of myself. No one must know of this. I stood up and walked over to the communications officer. He continued working as I sat down next to him. "We are com-out," said the officer. _

_ "Can I count on you to keep this under wraps?" I asked him. _

_ "Yes, but. . ." _

_ I stared him down. "But what?"_

_ "People have the right to know."_

_ "Know what?" I exclaimed in a whisper as to not let the other bridge officers hear. "That our whole way of life has been wiped from existence? People will mutiny and want to go back. We have a lucky opportunity. We have a few hundred people on board, with enough supplies to last us two years. Everyone on board is the best and brightest. If we go back, we will die." My XO walked over and listened to me talk to the communication officer. "For now, we explain this away as a radio malfunction. We continue on our mission and leave while we can. Our flight plan is not registered, so I bet the Cylons don't know where we are. Running can keep you alive. You both got that?" _

_ They nodded and said "yes ma'am" in unison. _

_ I stood. "Simon."_

_ My XO looked at me. His brown eyes complimented his brown complexion. "Yes Captain."_

_ "Begin jump prep. We are leaving."_

_-_

"We are leaving. Go ahead and give the evac order. Everyone should be prepped by now." I began to dig a path to get out of the destroyed CIC.

"What about the ships that have been destroyed?" asked Slaton. "Where do those people go?"

"Relay to the ship Captains that if their ship has been destroyed or damaged beyond flight ability, to go to the Battlestar Acropolis." I turned to the crewman. "Inform our ships of the situation and instruct Virgil to take care of a our Viper Wings that landed in the exit tunnel. Ask Virgil and Metanira to launch rescue Raptors to comb the dock for survivors. More importantly, to inspect Athena for any survivors they can find." I looked at my watch, "And tell them to hurry."

"Getting the Acropolis flight ready would take weeks, not to mention just disconnecting her from the station will take half an hour!" yelled Slaton.

"I know that, just relay the frakking order!" I yelled back. "And join me in Acropolis' CIC when you're done."

I found my way out of FTB's CIC and began to crawl through the debris to the service lift. The corridor was littered with bodies and bulkheads. The occasional surviving florescent light would give the impression of stability, but would shatter when I got under it. No one appeared to be alive.

I made it to the service lift. A metal beam had sliced diagonally through the ceiling, into the service lift doors, through the towering shaft, and into the opposite bulkhead. There was no using the lift. But that didn't matter. I opened the adjacent hatch and crawled through the tiny opening, into the maintenance access recess. In the recess, a ladder connected all the decks. I needed to only climb up a few levels, to the lower level ring, and I would be at the hub that connected all the Battlestars to the Dock Tower. From there, it was a quick run down the retractable causeway that connected to a hatch onto the Acropolis.

-

_Virgil was banged up pretty bad. One engine pod was offline, and another was about to go offline. Her outer decks were breached and sealed off. Half of her weapons were overheated, jammed, or offline. Virgil's Viper Wing was out of gas and ammo, and waited helplessly in her four landing bays for pickup. If the Cylons jumped in, Virgil could only mount a hopeless defense. Her crew needed to concentrate on fixing the damage, but instead, Tinker decided to send teams of welders, rescuers, paramedics, and engineers to help Athena, and rescue the Viper Wings in FTB._

_ Metanira was the lone oddball. She was primed for action. Instead of helping with FTB's evacuation, she set up a mediocre defensive patrol. She launched her one squadron of ten Raptors, with missile packages, around the station. Each Raptor was far enough away from FTB to effectively double their DRADIS range. _

_-_

On board Acropolis, the corridor was dimly lit with green lighting. The ship was cold and lifeless. Acropolis had been sitting here for the better part of half a century. She was perfectly preserved. After her last battle, in the first Cylon War, she stayed in service for five years before being retired here. Aside from her core and FTL, none of her systems have been used since then. Now I had to get her running.

I turned the hatch lock and pushed the heavy door open, which was accompanied by a loud, echoing creek. I stepped into the CIC and was greeted with ice-cold air and darkness. The only light came through the hatch from the green lit corridor, and from a red indicator light on the Systems Allocation Terminal. I walked to the terminal. My breath was visible from the temperature, and I was quickly becoming chilled.

Rather than sit on the metal chair in the freezing room, I stood at the terminal as I worked. I opened the file cabinet under the desk area of the terminal and found several different colored binders. I grabbed the yellow binder, that was accurately named 'YELLO BINDER', and flipped it open. All the pages were laminated and divided into sections based on more colors. The words were very large, and it immediately occurred to me this was a simple how-to prompt, that was designed for anyone to use.

The first page was very clear:

**YELLOW BINDER**

**QUICK-START-UP PROCEDURE**

**5-STEP GUIDE**

**1................RED**

**2......ORANGE**

**3......YELLOW**

**4.............BLUE**

**5.........GREEN**

**EACH STEP MUST BE COMPLETED PRIOR TO THE NEXT**

**IF POSSIBLE USE GREEN BINDER: NORMAL START-UP PROCEDURE**

**CAUTION: QUICK-STARTING WHEN COLD COULD CAUSE POWER SURGES**

**CAUTION: QUICK-STARTING OVERRIDES FIRE SAFETY COMPUTERS**

**CAUTION: ONCE STARTED THIS PROCEDURE MUST BE COMPLETED**

**CAUTION: FAILURE TO COMPLETE PROCEDURE MAY RESULT IN UNINTENDED JETTISON OF DROP PAYLOADS**

I began the procedure.

-

_The welding crews began cutting into Athena. The rescue teams were hearing the crew through the hull. It was a race against the clock to rescue all they could. Vipers began taking off from FTB's exit tunnel and landing on Virgil. Civilians began to board the few transports still working. The civilians who had no ship to go to, began to make their way onto the Acropolis. Slaton, and the communications crewman, made their way into Acropolis' CIC. _

_-_

I flipped the last switch, in sequence, according to the prompt in the red section. The emergency lights kicked in, and now, all the other terminals, in the CIC, lit up with red indicator lights. I turned to the orange section.

**ORANGE**

**PRIMARY POWER START-UP**

**STEP 2 CAN ONLY BE COMPLETED AFTER STEP 1 (EMERGENCY POWER START-UP)**

**1. PRIMARY BUS POWER SWITCH: ON, LOCKED – LCM M19**

**2. SECONDARY BUS POWER SWITCH: ON, LOCKED – RCM A21**

**3. RELAY BUS POWER SWITCH: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ENGAGED – BREAKER BR 22 B22**

**4. BATTERY POWER: UNLOCKED, OFF, STANDBY – OHD E13**

**5. POWER NETWORK COMPUTER: ON, AUTO – PNC PSAT D44**

**6. SYSTEMS RELAYS: 1 – 20 ON, LOCKED – SPP 1-20 E32 – E52**

After flipping the last few switches, clicks echoed from behind panels as power began flowing through the buses around the CIC. Then the florescent lights came on, followed by all the computer monitors. Each monitor displayed the same message: NO SIGNAL. I checked my watch, we had seven minutes until the station jumped. I flipped to the next section.

**YELLOW**

**COMPUTER SYSTEMS START-UP**

**STEP 3 CAN ONLY BE COMLETED AFTER STEP 2 (PRIMARY POWER START-UP)**

Then David walked into the CIC, followed by the communications crewman, and a few dozen officers and civilians. "Slaton!" I smiled. "Get your ass in this chair and get us up and running." Slaton ran to the terminal and took over the start-up. "Crewman," I looked to the young kid. "You have a name?"

"My friends call me Goodie," said the young crewman.

"Goodie, you're my communications Chief," I pointed to the communications terminal next to the information management table. "Take your station. Did you relay the evacuation order?"

"Yes Commander," answered Goodie. "And civilians have began boarding the ship."

"What's the plan?" asked Slaton as he brought the ships systems online. "We can't even launch the ship in the next few minutes, much less escape the spatial displacement field."

"The plan is to jump Acropolis before the station jumps. And _you_ are going to find a way to do that David." I grabbed his shoulders as I saw the shock in his face. He seemed worried and began working much quicker. I noticed he started skipping procedures in the start-up binder. "What is it?" I asked worried.

"We can start the ship later," said Slaton. "Right now I have to get power to our FTL computer. Currently it is being inhibited by the stations FTL computer."

"Why don't we just destroy the station's FTL?" asked a voice from the hatchway.

"Councilor Jacobs!" I exclaimed. "What the frak are you doing here?" The last I remembered. . . I thought he was dead.

"I was unconscious, not dead. And thanks for checking if I was alive," he said with anger under his teeth. "Where are we at Commander?" I understood he asked according to the sequence of events, not referring to our actual location.

I stuttered, but found me feet again. "Well,"

"Virgil reports seven transports have left the station," said Goodie. "Vipers have been recovered, and they managed to recover about a hundred survivors from Athena. Rescue Raptors are still pulling people out."

I continued, "we are going to jump Acropolis before the station jumps."

"Which leads me to my first question, why don't we just destroy the FTL?" asked Jacobs as he held his head. He limped over to the lighted table in the middle of the CIC and leaned against it. He was hurt pretty bad.

I tried to help him to a chair, but he shrugged off my help. Frak him. "Destroying the FTL would set off a chain reaction igniting the power core of the station and the Battlestars, it is too risky."

"And this isn't?" he asked sarcastically.

"Lesser of two evils. Even if we destroyed the FTL, we would still have to evacuate the station." I responded.

Then, all the computer monitors began displaying information, and the DRADIS console came online. I heard a hum as the engine pods ignited. My attention was caught by Slaton running over to the FTL terminal. He began working faster than I had ever seen him work. He was tearing panels off the terminal and cross wiring circuits. Slaton was determined to save us, or just save himself. I checked my watch: two minutes.

Goodie had put away the hand held wireless and was now using the ships communication system. "Another transport has left the station. Virgil says that is the last of them. They are about to pull out their Raptors."

"You better hope this works," said Jacobs as he sat in a chair.

"No councilor, _you_ better hope this works," I responded.

One minute was left. "Tell Virgil to pull their teams out. What is done is done. I don't know where we are jumping," I looked over to Slaton. He was sweating and I could see he was worried. "Tell Virgil that if we jump out, we will rendezvous at the next lighthouse."

"I have Virgil actual," said Slaton.

I picked up the receiver on the lighted table, "Matt?"

"_Pam, we couldn't find Lindsey,_" said Tinker.

I had to think for a moment to realize who he was talking about. Then it hit me. My executive officer, Major Lindsey Cramer, she left us from flight recorder meeting we just had an hour ago. She was supposed to be my best friend, and I couldn't remember her after all this. "How do you know she was on board Athena?"

_"She called for rescue on the emergency band just before you did,"_ said Matt. I realized now that she made it to Athena after the meeting, and took command of the ship. Through her actions, Craton was distracted long enough for Oceanus to take it out. _"We found Colonel Marks, he was in a Viper."_

"Thanks Matt," I said. I choked up, "for everything."

I set the receiver down and looked at Slaton. Everyone was looking at Slaton. He looked like a kid, but he was far from it. He had a life on FTB, and now he was about to destroy it. I'm not sure if it helped or hurt that Cody was dead.

I looked at my watch. The LCD seconds were counting down. I spoke the countdown out loud. "FTB jump in ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. . ."

-

_ The station flashed as a spatial displacement field engulfed it. Then, just as quickly, the field collapsed back in on itself, without the entire station. The inside of FTB fell through the spatial ripple, while a majority of the exterior of FTB remained. The Integrity Shell supports snapped, causing the polar regions to pull toward the core. The equatorial plane exploded, sending rocks, dust, and metal support beams flying through space. The spatial displacement field triggered core breaches on the ships that remained. The result was a series of nuclear sized explosions inside the station. _

_ All this occurred in the millisecond the spatial field rippled back in on itself. The effect caused explosions, dust, rocks, supports, and anything in range, to fly inward toward a singular point, smaller than that of a singularity. _

_ What remained was the surface of the station, that had collapsed inward. As it collapsed inward, the spatial field rippled back on itself, returning space to normal, causing the surface to stop collapsing inward, and instantly explode outward, in all directions. From jump to annihilation took just under two seconds. The station was now nothing more than rock, dust, and metal exploding in a spherical geodesic plane. _


	10. ANSWERS

CHAPTER 10

---ANSWERS---

_Flying back to Virgil from FTB, Raptors watched as the station exploded in a beautiful spherical plane, like a fireworks show. The pause for observation was brief, because debris from the explosion flew outward, in all directions. The Raptors, Virgil, and the surviving civilian ships were right in the debris path._

_ The Squadron of Raptors still in the air watched as the civilian ships jumped away. They also watched as Virgil left without them. Thankfully, Virgil relayed the rendezvous jump point before she left. _

_-_

_ The interior of FTB reappeared in close proximity of the sun. Instantly, an explosion cascaded around the remains. The Battlestars, that jumped with the interior of the station, began to fall towards the star. The gravity of the star began to rip the ships apart, causing them to explode into pieces. A few seconds after appearing, the nuclear war heads in the Battlestars detonated from the radiation of the sun. Everything was engulfed by a light ten times brighter than the star. Acropolis was not there._

_-_

_ Acropolis appeared in deep space, somewhere. . ._

_-_

The digital alarm sounded. I looked over to the far port side of the CIC, at the Damage Control Station. I saw red indicator lights around various outer sections of the ship, where the pressure doors did not close. Damage Control used an old static layout of the ship, with LED lights, to display problems. This CIC was just as old as FTB was.

I looked up at the massive DRADIS console above me. We were in the clear. I looked over to Slaton. He was standing frozen with his hand on the glowing blue FTL Jump Key. He had turned the key, initiating the jump, the instant before FTB did. His quick actions resulted in our survival. I looked over to Goodie. He was holding his breath. Then I realized something: everyone was in stunned silence. All of us expected to be dead, yet we lived. Jacobs stood up, and gave me a pat on the shoulder, then quietly limped out of the room. He had enough arguing for one day.

I sighed, then collected my thoughts. "Give me ship wide," I ordered out loud as I grabbed one of the corded phones connected to the lighted table. Goodie flipped a few switches, and I heard the speakers cue. "Everyone, everybody, listen up. We are alive. We are living. We are breathing. Right now we are adrift in space. I need all members of the military, that made it on board, to report to the CIC. Of the civilians on board, if you have military, technical, pilot, or engineering experience, I need you to report to the CIC. We have to get this ship up and running if we are going to survive."

I hung up the phone and looked at my watch. "Damascus."

"Is that the next light house?" asked Slaton. I nodded. Slaton checked a few terminals, then walked over to the elevated tactical station. He pulled out a few maps from under the tactical lighted table. He spoke as he sprawled the maps out, "Damascus is currently on its return slingshot from the edge of the system." Slaton pointed to its probable location. "Is anyone on it?"

"No," I answered. I stepped up to the elevated tactical station. " Awhile back, Cody sent a Raptor team to check it out. No one made it there. It's so old, we figured the Cylons wouldn't care about it."

"Well. . . let me get our position plotted and we can calculate a jump. But first thing's first. We got to get this old girl up and running."

"What do you recommend?" I asked.

"This is an Original Battlestar. So we have only one option, given the age of this lady." Slaton walked over to the Systems Allocation Terminal. He pulled out the green binder from under the desk area. It was named 'GREEN BINDER'. "We start with step one."

-

Getting the ship up and running was no easy task. And, given our severe technical inexperience in running an old Battlestar, it took twice as long to start the ship than the book deemed plausible. We knew we did it right when we all felt the flight pods extending.

By the time Acropolis was running, we sent a Raptor to Damascus. Virgil, and her fleet, rendezvoused with us, and, for good measure, we jumped one more time. While we fixed all the ships, and came up with a plan, we left Raptor teams at the lighthouses around the system. After everything had been said and done, we realized just how bad it was.

Three days later, everything was finally running smoothly. A meeting was convened to discuss several issues. It was composed of myself, Commander Tinker, Colonel Marks, the Commander of the Metanira, the senior fleet captains, and the Quorum of Thirteen, including Jacobs. I brought along David Slaton; he was my jack of all trades, and he would be presenting the information.

-

"11,280" said Slaton.

We were on the Battlestar Virgil, in one of her ceremonial rooms. The room was carpeted with blue and yellow. The walls were a dark wood grain. Tables were set up, forming a half square and facing a center podium. Luxurious leather chairs, enough for every person summoned, were at the tables. The podium sat on an elevated stage. Behind the podium was a wall that doubled for an interactive display. Lit up on the display were numbers.

All those summoned sat in the chairs, behind the desks, and watched Slaton.

Slaton continued, "Out of 16,176 people, we lost 4,896. The losses include half of our trained military force, combined with two Battlecruisers, one Battleship, and the station itself." Now the display began showing schematics of the fleet ships. "Out of six designated emergency escape transports, only three made it out. A freighter, science vessel, hauler, an executive, and a corvette made it out, without being prepped for evacuation." The display switched to a poorly rendered simulation of the battle inside FTB's dock. "We are attributing this to the fact that our main escape vehicles were destroyed, or the means of accessing them were destroyed. And above all else, most of the survivors escaped on the Acropolis." Schematics of Acropolis began scrolling.

"How, exactly, Mr. Slaton, did this all happen?" asked Jacobs. It was clear to me he was looking for someone to blame. The council looked at Slaton with earnest ears.

Slaton looked at Marks, then to myself. He quickly glanced at Tinker, but Tinker was looking down, at the table. It was as if the two were trying to not look at one another. He then sighed and began, "Clearly, a virus entered Craton. All the evidence points to D'Anna Biers, a Hotel-Charlie, or Humanoid-Cylon. She entered Craton's Network Administration Office, and did it all from there."

"Yes. . ." Jacobs coughed. "But you are leaving out the how. My dear boy, did you, or did you not, rewrite Craton's programming? From the ground up?"

Slaton sighed. Then he grew frustrated. I could sense he was coming to the same conclusion I was: they were going to blame him for it. "After we first arrived on FTB, Admiral Ryan Cody and I both decided it would be best to format Craton. As a matter of fact, we did that for most of the Military ships. We wiped Craton cleaned, all her hard drives."

"And you rewrote the system that allowed a virus to control Craton?" asked Jacobs, with a devilish grin. I couldn't help but wonder what he was getting at. What did Jacobs hope to accomplish by nailing Slaton to it?

"It is true, the system we created was taken over by a Cylon virus. But it is pure speculation that it was because of my system!" Slaton said with a raised voice.

"Careful Chief," said Jacobs. He was offended by Slaton's tone of voice. "If you remember, that's how you lost your commission." I looked over to Marks, who I saw roll his eyes. Marks lost his promotion the same way, smarting off to Jacobs. "The point is, we don't know for sure." Jacobs addressed the Council and the room, "so we can conclude that the only logic point was because of the system Slaton built, that led to this."

"Excuse me sir?" asked Slaton through closed teeth.

"Tell me Chief," continued Jacobs. His voice began to raise, "how do we know you didn't purposely redesign the system to allow for this to happen? Chief, are you a Cylon?"

Slaton looked at Jacobs with contempt. Then Slaton looked over to Tinker. Tinker nodded and handed a note to his aide, who then took the note and left the room. Slaton continued, "Council members of the Quorum, Chief Councilor Jacobs, Commanders, Captains, Colonel. I know _EX-ACT-LY _how all this transpired."

Jacobs looked up curiously, "Oh do you? Or is this nothing but a fabrication because you are worried about us finding your true motives?"

"You know Jacobs, I loved one person in my life. He taught me that you always had to be ready to show, through means other than words, the reasons of your actions. And while you may not know as to what that may mean, you can start with saving. . . all the information you can." Slaton picked up the podium and moved it off the elevated stage. Now the line of sight was clear to the entire wall display.

"This is preposterous," said Jacobs. "What information? The station was lost."

"Councilor Jacobs," said a Councilwoman. "We would like to listen. Please be quiet." She turned to Slaton. "Chief, show us what you mean."

Slaton inserted a Colonial Information Disk into the computer, next to the wall display, and began. The image was a screen filled with information. One side had video logs, another side had video playing back. The bottom side held a time-line. "Craton's last engagement before this one was about three years ago. We jumped in to pick up seventy five survivors from Devils Basin, inside the tropical forest of Aquarius. We got jumped on by a Cylon Basestar. To expedite the evacuation, we landed Craton, and picked everyone up in one shot, then jumped out. The whole process was very quick. Later that day, when I was cross checking the system for any sign of Cylon infiltration, I discovered a transmission had been made to the base ship."

Everyone sat up in their seats. "What kind of transmission?" asked the councilwoman.

Slaton continued as he brought up the specifics of the transmission. "It was heavily coded. After a few months, Cody and I managed to break it open. It was a message to the Cylons, informing them that the Virus had been successfully uploaded." Slaton brought up earlier logs. "How that virus got on, I don't know. But I know, for a fact, it is not the program responsible for controlling Craton during FTB's destruction."

Everyone began to whisper to each other. "Son, are you going to get to a point?" asked Jacobs. I looked across the room and saw Tinker smile a bit as his aide handed him another note. Something was going on.

"The point is, we found the virus, but couldn't delete it. It had embedded itself too deeply into the root source code. Cody and I decided to only tell the top military leaders, because, quite frankly, we can't trust civilians." Slaton stared down Jacobs. He turned back to the screen showing Craton's hard drive capacity. The other side of the screen showed a programming tree of Craton, with highlighted red lines showing the virus imbedded throughout the tree. "So we had to format the hardware. All of it! We lied and told everyone we were doing it in case a virus tried to upload itself, even though it already had. Let us remember this point: we formatted the hardware and rebuilt the system using totally original software engines. It took ten months, but we did it."

"What does that mean?" asked a ship Captain.

"For any virus to be able to use this system, it had to break into it first. And with a totally new security program protecting it, it would require direct hacking, by a Cylon mainframe, to get into it." Slaton pressed another button on the wall, and the screen began displaying more dumbed down pictures demonstrating his point. "The original attack happened when the Cylons shutdown the Colonial Defense Mainframe. You can only do that if you have been studying it for a long time. We made Craton the same way, you can only break into her programming after studying it for a long time. To add action to thought, the system was attacked by a virus during the mission to save Athena a few days ago. It effectively repelled the attack."

"But they did get in," reminded Jacobs.

Slaton smiled, "Yes they did sir, thank you for bringing that up." Slaton brought up the security footage of D'Anna killing the young communications crewman, and getting on the Craton. Everyone watched the screen diligently. "I will tell you how I got this footage in a second. Right now, I will answer your question. D'Anna killed Crewman Quinn, and used his body as a distraction outside of Craton's CIC." The footage was from different angles, showing the attack. "The CIC crew was only comprised of a handful of people because she was docked. The distraction lured the crew to the corridor outside. D'Anna entered through a maintenance hatchway on the adjacent wall, and got into the NAO corridor."

The video showed her walking down the corridor, entering the NAO, and sitting at the terminal. I looked to the back of the room, behind the council members. A team of armed Marines entered and stood quietly along the back of the room.

The video wall was showing D'Anna trying to get into Craton's system. "Here," continued Slaton, "She attacks the hard drive itself and gets in rather quickly, in less than twenty seconds. She also managed to avoid setting off all the detection nets. That should not have been possible." Slaton brought up a pie chart of the hard drives. "This is a visual that shows all four server farms on Craton as one. She attacks all four, then she sees something." The video showed her leaning forward in the chair. Slaton brought up some numbers. "If I take the total space on the system, one exabyte of storage, subtract that from the amount of space we have used, and compare that to the total available free memory: we get a discrepancy of 57.6 gigabytes. That discrepancy caught D'Anna's eye."

"What was it?" asked the councilwoman.

"One of the hard drives on server three had a partition on it, which is a separation within the drive. On that partition was the Cylon Virus we thought we deleted. It saved itself." Slaton brought up the visual code of the virus. It appeared to resemble vertical scrolling red symbols. "With the time she had, D'Anna needed a way onto the system, and the partition allowed her an ability to access the hard drive. From that partition, she built a bridge to the main drive, got into the root code of Craton, and released the original Virus, which she modified, enabling her to avoid all the security programs. She activated the CIC fire suppressant system, escaped the ship, and made her way to the Stations FTL, where we all know the rest of the story."

"How did the virus take control of the guns then? If you said they were protected from itself?" asked Jacobs.

"That, I can only speculate. The reason I have all this information," said Slaton as he nodded to the video of D'Anna playing on the wall, "is because I have a redundant link setup between Craton and a backup server. When ever Craton is docked, she is 'backed up' on the server, and a real time data link copies, and secures all information coming through that link. That link also enables a real time feed of everything happening on the ship."

"Why?" asked the councilwoman.

"It was first used in case I screwed up while rewriting the ships program a few years ago. Then Cody and I saw how useful it was in case something happened," answered Slaton.

"But you did screw up Chief Slaton. How did you not catch the partition? Was it your Cylon programming?" asked Jacobs in a sarcastic way.

"What a wonderful question Sir," said Slaton equally as sarcastic. "Commander Tinker already knows the answer, and I am happy to tell you." I looked around the room. The Marines were slowly walking forward. Tinker was looking angry. "After examining the saved information from the backup link, I discovered a few interesting tid-bits. D'Anna knew exactly where the partition was. The existence of the partition was kept secret from Cody and I. Someone erased the log of the Memory Systems Check, and rewrote the Applicable Memory Available file so any further checks would have the same result."

"In layman's terms Mr. Slaton," said the councilwoman. She was becoming frustrated at the technical mumbo-jumbo.

Slaton spoke slowly, "Someone hid the partition from Cody and I, so that normal memory checks show up fine. The Applicable Memory Available file is the code that tells me how much memory I have, without physically adding all the bytes with a calculator." Slaton brought up the access logs. "Then that person deleted their access log. They also deleted it from the backup data-link! And that happened a long time ago, before D'Anna even was found."

"What does that mean?" asked the Councilwoman.

"Someone here is helping the Cylons. Who?" I asked.

Slaton was now staring down Jacobs. "They deleted their virtual footprint. But they might not of thought to check a second tier backup. I save deleted trash also, just in case." Slaton pressed another button on the wall.

The access log came up, along with another video file, with Jacobs in it. Jacobs access code appeared highlighted on the display. Jacobs was the one who hid the file. "You knew about it, only you Councilor. Tell me, what model are you?" asked Slaton as he walked up to Jacobs. "You are a Cylon right?" In regards to that question, the Quorum members next to Jacobs scattered.

"Marines, arrest the Councilor!" yelled Tinker as he stood up. The rest of the room stood up.

Jacobs smiled as the Marines threw him out of his chair, and onto the table. They cuffed his hands behind his back.

The Marines stood Jacobs up. "Is this true?" asked the councilwoman.

"The Chief is correct, I am a Cylon," said Jacobs. "What model number I am is not important, but you can call me Cavil." The Marines pointed their rifles at his head. Cavil smiled.


	11. HOPE

CHAPTER 11

---HOPE---

Tinker came around the table and grabbed Cavil by the collar. "Is this fun for you?"

"My dear boy, no. This is the furthest thing from fun. This is more like torture. But this is the only way."

"Only way for what!" yelled Tinker.

"History has shown that no matter what you do to conquer a race, a small division remains. Your brothers are running across the galaxy, but you stayed. This way, we can keep on eye on you."

"Who is running across the galaxy?" asked Slaton.

"That is not important. Just know that my purpose here is no longer required. This was more of an extended study mission," said Cavil.

"What are we? Rats to you?" asked Slaton.

Cavil thought for a second then smiled. "Yes."

"How many Humanoid-Cylons are there?" asked Slaton.

Cavil's smile turned into a frown, "There _were_ only twelve. That's why _I _was here." Right then Cavil headbutted Tinker, then turned and kicked a Marine. He climbed on top of the table, and moved quickly to the exit. The Marines fired, and shot him to death. In the process, a councilman was caught in the line of fire.

The room grew silent. The Marines checked Cavil. He was dead, so was the councilman. Tinker stood up and walked over to the corded phone in the wall, and grabbed it. "This is Tinker, recalculate a new jump position, distribute amongst the fleet, and execute FTL as soon as you can get a fix. Our position might be compromised." Tinker, held the phone to his shoulder and looked back at the room. "What direction should we go?"

I knew! "Before the attack, I was taking the Chronicle to the Prolmar Sector. We were going to pickup where prior missions had left of from. We were looking for Kobol. We could head that way. I highly doubt the Cylons would have gone that way. They would have no reason to."

"And maybe that is the way Galactica went," added Colonel Marks.

"He was probably referring to Galactica when he mentioned our brothers," Slaton added.

"Plot a course for the Prolmar Sector." Tinker before he hung up the phone.

-

The Marines began to take the bodies out of the room. The Coucilwoman was talking quietly in the corner with the Quroum and the ship Captains. We, the military leaders, were talking in another corner. It became clear to me we had two divisions.

"Just how did the Virus get around your safety protocols and control Craton's guns?" asked Marks.

"I grabbed the backup drives on my way to Acropolis. The backup link stopped the instant the ship tore apart from its cradle, so I can only speculate how she did it while in the air," said Slaton. "When she was docked, the docking mechanisms caused a transient fault in the safety system, allowing for random access of the guns." Marks sighed and looked unhappy as Slaton spoke. "It was on my list of things to fix sir, but Cody and I didn't think it was a priority."

"Speculate for me Chief," ordered Tinker. "How do you think it got around your safety protocols?"

"Craton was brand new, a test ship. She had circuitry that even I didn't understand, and I'm a genius. It's possible that the Virus was able to bypass the safety computer, and control the guns directly. Computers do nothing but turn on circuits, and turn off circuits. The command is zero and one. If you can find a way to send the right sequence of zeros and ones to the individual gun computers, then you can do it. With Craton's network, she had literally billions of electronic highways to send information on. The only tricky part was that some circuits can't handle the high flow of traffic, so you risk burning them out. You don't have to power the guns, they are plugged into the ships power grid. You don't even have to power the gun computers, they are powered off the guns power. All the Virus had to do was send the correct command sequence of zeros and ones over the circuitry, without burning them out, and control the computers individually."

"Commander Tinker," said the Councilwoman. She walked over with the Quorum and Captains. We all turned around and stood before them. "As the Commander of our most powerful asset, we would like to promote you to Admiral and request that you take command of the fleet. We support the plan to find Kobol, and ultimately, catch up to our fellow citizens that are with Galactica."

-

Admiral Matt Tinker took control of our small fleet. I was officially given command of Acropolis. Colonel Mike Marks joined me as my Executive Officer. I asked Slaton to serve as my Tactical and Second Officer. I gave him a step promotion to Captain, and promised him I wouldn't take it away from him if he smarted off.

We had spread the civilians as far out as we could, so no single ship would be over crowded. We docked two of the smaller transports permanently in Virgil's fourth landing bay, to save on fuel. On the bright side, our Viper fleets were huge, considering the numbers we recovered from the station's Wing. However, we had a few problems.

We had full tanks of gas, but we didn't know exactly where to go. The Acropolis had plenty of on board munitions to resupply Virgil, while arming her own weapons, but we didn't have trained crews to operate them for now. A lot of our food stores were along the outer hulls, and had breached into space, so we were on rations. The civilians on the ship began turning into gangs. Spreading them out among the fleet helped, but not by much.

Acropolis was a good ship though. She was tried and true. While much smaller than Virgil, she was a bit quicker and denser. The last Battlestar I served on was the Valkyrie, for the year during the leadership transition. When I got there, Commander Adama, and Colonel Tigh had just left. The new Commander made me the ships second officer, and I did that for one year. Then I retired and went to work on President Adar's re-election staff. Now I was doing this. You really have no idea where your life will go.

-

"_Where to Commander?_" asked Tinker over the phone.

I was in my CIC looking at charts sent over from the Chronicle, she was one of the ships that made it out, thankfully. "Telescopes are indicating the presence of a system around eighty light-years ahead. We jump there and try again," I said over the corded phone.

_"So this is our life?" _asked Tinker. He was referring to the endless jumps we were finding ourselves repeating.

"Matt, if Galactica could do it, we can." I didn't know what to say. Matt was right. We were doomed to this. "Maybe this is our punishment."

_"Maybe,"_ said Matt. _"Bev, are you okay?"_

"I was just about to ask you the same thing."

"_Dinner tonight?"_

"I was thinking something a little more. . . physical."

_"Having you makes this all easier._"

I smiled. It warmed my heart when he said things like that. From the information management table, I looked over at Slaton plotting the jump. I understood him and Cody so much more now. "As long as we keep doing this, loving one another, we have hope." I placed the phone back on the table.

I watched Slaton interact with the crew. Everything was in slow motion. People were working together. We had to have hope. As long as we had that, there was a future ahead of us.

_**- - - - - - **_


	12. CAUSALITY

CHAPTER 12

---CAUSALITY---

* * *

Colonel Heavy 798, now Colonial One, successfully made its way through the storm and to the Ragnar Anchorage. She landed in Galactica's port flight pod and offloaded the recently sworn in President Laura Roslin. Billy Keikeya carried the new President's brief case while walking at her side. The two were followed by Captain Lee Adama, Lieutenant Sharon Valerii, and a self appointed staff as they made their way to the CIC. After speaking with Colonel Tigh, and securing two disaster pods for use in the civilian fleet, the President and her staff went to work coordinating the fleets actions, while at the Ragnar station.

After several hours, President Roslin finally sat down with Billy to go over ship requests, when she received a message via the Captain of Colonial One. Commander Adama had made it out of the bowels of Ragnar, and was requesting to speak to _Secretary_ Roslin. She glared at the remark and informed Billy. The two left the docked Colonial One, and went to the Ceremony Room, where Billy was ready to continue their earlier discussion.

They sat down, and before they could continue going over administrative work, Lt. Gaeta walked in the room. "Excuse me? Secretary Roslin?"

"It's _President_ Roslin," corrected Billy.

Laura kept her smile, and waved Billy off from verbally attacking Gaeta. "I'm sorry, Madam President." Laura nodded her head towards the apology. "I was going through my end of the day notes, and in the middle of the attack, I forgot about this one. It's from The skipper of the Chronicle, Captain Pamela Beverly."

Laura smiled. "I know Bev, thank you Mr. Gaeta." Laura shook his hand and took the note before he left.

_**Laura-**_

_**You may not be able to keep running, but running keeps you alive, and standing still kills you. **_

Laura sat in shocked silence for a moment. She realized, just then, the extent of the devastation. She made up her mind, that instant, that they had to leave. Their only chance for survival was Galactica. She only wondered one thing: How would she convince Commander Adama that she was right?

"Please continue Billy."

"There is a problem with the Rising Star. . ." Billy paused for a second to the sound of the hatch entering again. Billy decided to press on. "And medical supplies are running low again, Madam President. Uh, three of the ships have reported engine trouble and want to know when they'll be receiving engineering assistance from Galactica."

"That's Good question." Laura finally acknowledged Adama's presence. "Hello, Commander. Have a seat, I'll be with you in a moment." She looked over to Billy, "keep going Billy."

Adama, taken back by the order given to him on his ship, decided to take a seat and wait. Billy briefly glanced at Adama. Billy knew they were about to play a high-stakes game.

"Uh, the captain of the Astral Queen wants you to know that he's got nearly 500 convicted criminals under heavy guard in his cargo hold. They were being transported to a penal station when the attack happened."

"Oh great"

"He wants to know what to do with them."

"What to do with them?" Even though she asked the question, she knew full well what it meant.

"Well, with food and medical supplies being what they are, I think he's considering just..."

This was unacceptable. "No. No. No we're not going to start that. They're still human beings. Tell the captain I expect daily reports on the well-being of his prisoners and if there's any "mysterious" deaths, the Astral Queen may find herself on her own without the Galactica's protection."

"Yes, Madam President." Billy made the mental note.

"Thank you, Billy," said Laura. Billy took this as confirmation to leave. He gathered his papers and left. Laura thought for a moment. Then she decided the best way to do this was quick and in the open. She waited for the hatch to close so they were alone. "You planning to stage a military coup?"

She caught Adama completely off-guard. "What?"

She broke it down for him. "Do you plan to declare martial law? Take over the

government?"

This line of questioning offended him. "Of course not."

She struck at the opportunity in logic. "Then you do acknowledge my position as President as duly constituted under the Articles of Colonization."

Coming from a family with a legal background, Adama tried to dodge the question that he should of never opened himself up for. "Miss Roslin, my primary objective at the present time is to repair the Galactica and continue to fight."

"What we do know at this moment is that there are 50,000 civilian refugees out there who don't stand a chance without your ship to protect them."

"We're aware of the tactical situation and I'm sure that you'll all be safe here on Ragnar after we leave."

"After you leave?" She cleared her throat. "Where are you going?"

"To find the enemy. We're at war. That's my mission." And he was adamant about completing that mission. After all, he had no idea where to go if he were to run.

Frustrated, Laura decided to spell it out for him. "I honestly don't know why _I_ have to keep telling _you_ this, but the war is over."

That question offended his honor while he wore the uniform. "It hasn't begun yet."

She sighed. "That's insane." It was clear to her that she lost the argument.

"You would rather that we run?" The very idea amused him.

She would have never considered it. But given her recent brush with mortality, and the realization about what Pamela Beverly meant in her note, running made since. "Yes! Absolutely. That is the only sane thing to do here. Exactly that. Run. We leave this solar system and we don't look back."

"And we go where?"

"I don't know. Another star system, another planet. Somewhere where the Cylons won't find us.

"You can run if you'd like. This ship will stand and it will fight."

Then it hit her, just what running meant, and why it was exactly what Beverly said. "I'm going to be straight with you here. The human race is about to be wiped out. We have fifty thousand people left and that's it. Now, If we are even going to survive as a species, then we need to get the hell out of here and we need to start having babies."

"Excuse me." Fed up, Adama stood and left the room. He could not fathom running. Nor would he entertain it.

-

Commander Adama made his way to the CIC. He knew Starbuck would soon be reporting back from her scout mission. Soldiers saluted him all the way to the command center. Once he entered, everyone was listening to static over the speakers as Starbuck tried to broadcast through the electromagnetic field of Ragnar.

He could not get over the conversation with the President. He looked around at the CIC while everyone worked. It occurred to him that she might be right. They were the last of the military, of their technical experience, of their planets, they were the last of their race. He didn't like the idea of running, but he was beginning to see just how right it was. But like he asked the President, _Where would they go?_

He walked past Lt. Gaeta's station. A note on Gaeta's roster caught his eye.

**_CHRONICLE-BEVERLY-PROLMAR SEC-LOOK 4 KOBOL-WORRIED SABO-REFUSE FLIGHT PLAN. . . . WHY?_ **

Then he remembered the stories of Kobol that his grandmother had told him as a boy. A thirteenth tribe of man had left for another world called Earth. He was sure that Earth and Kobol were not real, and held his belief that it was just a story. But if he was going to run, he had to find a way for people to buy it. He stood at the information management table and continued to listen to the broadcast from Starbuck.

"Say again?" asked Dee loudly over the headset.

The radio cleared, and Kara came over the radio without interference. _"I didn't get an accurate count. It looks like two base stars with ten fighter squadrons and two recon drone detachments patrolling the area."_

Colonel Tigh grabbed the bottom of the headset, "Starbuck, were you followed?"

_"Negative. No sign of pursuit. By the way they were deployed, I'd say they're waiting for us to come to them."_

Adama had heard enough. It was now time to formulate a plan. He spoke towards Dee, "bring her home."

Dee held her earpiece against her head. "Thank you Starbuck. Continue present course. Return to visual contact and stand by for instructions."

_"Copy that Galactica. Starbuck out."_

Commander Adama motioned for Tigh to talk with him at the Tactical Station, and called for his son to join them also, "Captain." He needed his jack of all trades in on the discussion, "Lt. Gaeta, stay please." Adama stood on the elevated side of the lighted table at the station, next to Gaeta. His son, and first officer stood on the lowered side.

"How the hell did they find us?" asked Tigh while holding his hands behind his back.

Adama didn't care. "Doesn't really matter. They've got us."

"Why aren't they coming in after us, sir?" asked Gaeta. He was still new to real life battle tactics. Adama stared at the green lit plexiglass display behind him.

"Why should they?" asked Tigh smugly. "They can just sit out there and wait us out. What difference does it make to them? They're machines. We're the ones that need food, medicine, fuel."

Adama turned to remark on Tigh's comment, "I'm not gonna play their game. I'm not gonna go out there and try to fight 'em." He needed to get his ship out of the corner it was in. If he tried a one on one battle, he would surely lose against the odds. "Can we plot a jump from inside the storm?"

Tigh looked up in caution. "With all this E.M. interference muckin' up the FTL fix?"

"I tend to agree sir. I don't think we should even attempt a jump until we've cleared the storm threshold," added Gaeta.

"We have to be quick about it though," added Lee. He was thinking like a CAG. "They'll launch everything they have first glimpse they get."

Adama noticed something while Lee spoke. The Preisdent's young male aide walked into the CIC.

_"Stick our nose out just far enough to get a good FTL fix, then jump?" asked Tigh._

The young man walked over to Dee's communications terminal. Adama watched the two from across the CIC.

"_What about the civilians?" asked Lee._

_ "Eh, they're probably safe for the time being," answered Tigh without emotion._

_ Tighs callousness offended Lee. "You mean leave them here?"_

Adama listened to the conversation his officers were having, but paid more attention to Dee and the young man. They were flirting. They were _living_, while he was going through the _motions _of living. Why? Too much had been lost to fight a battle he couldn't win.

_"The Cylons may not even know they're here in the first place," added Gaeta. "They're __probably only after us."_

_ "Now that's one hell of an assumption." Lee didn't like speculating on human lives. _

_ "Well," said Tigh, "we can't very well cram 50,000 men, women, and children aboard this ship."_

Dee and the young man were doing what humans have done since the dawn of time, engage in each other. Adama realized that Dee and the boy would probably be the last humans to do the time honored courtship ritual.

_"I'm not suggesting that sir. I'm just saying we can't leave them behind," corrected Lee. "They should jump with us."_

_ "I just don't see how we can manage that without jeopardizing our ship," added Gaeta._

_ "We pick a jump spot," answered Lee. "Far enough outside the combat zone for. . ."_

_ Lee was cut off by Tigh raising his voice. "What the hell is outside the combat zone at this point?"_

The continued existence of the human race was outside the combat zone, and Adama knew it. He envied Dee and the young man, and came to realize the President was right. "They better start having babies." The remark caught everyone off guard.

The officers turned towards the direction of Adama's gaze, Dee and the young man flirting. "Is that an order?" smarted off Tigh.

Adama was serious, "Maybe before too long." He made up his mind. They would leave. Everything was too precious now. "Okay, we're gonna take the civilians with us. We're gonna leave this solar system, and we're not gonna come back." But to where? Then he remembered the note.

**_CHRONICLE-BEVERLY-__PROLMAR SEC__-LOOK 4 KOBOL-WORRIED SABO-REFUSE FLIGHT PLAN. . . . WHY?_ **

"We're running?" asked Tigh. He was offended. The act of running was against his instinct.

Adama leaned in, and emphasized to his officers, and especially to his best friend the meaning of it all. "This war is over. . . we lost."

"My father's right," said Lee. "It's time for us to get out of here."

Adama smiled. He loved his son, and he needed Lee to live. They had to leave. It was against everything he had been taught, but reason out weighed military instinct.

Understanding that arguing was futile, because he knew his best friend had made the decision to leave, Tigh showed mild cooperation. "So where are we going Commander?"

That was the question of the day. Adama remembered the note. _**PROLMAR SEC**_. Kobol might be that way, and if not Kobol, another habitable planet they could possibly settle down on and forget about the nightmare of the end of the world. "The Prolmar Sector."

* * *

After being shot multiple times by the FTB CIC officers, she died instantly. But not before her consciousness transmitted to the waiting Resurrection Ship in the area. Having never died before, the process was new to D'Anna. She saw here life, and the life of her model's line, through a data-stream of instant information, but she was unable to process any of it.

Something caught her attention. Five faces stuck out at her. She wondered who they were. She was always told the consciousness had no sense of time while downloading, but she swore that it was taking more time than it was supposed to.

The Resurrection Ship received a forwarding command when it tried to resurrect D'Anna. It transmitted the Three's conciseness to the next Resurrection Ship. That ship forwarded the conciseness to the Resurrection Hub. It was there that the resurrection program started.

D'Anna felt a hot metal rod run through her body, as all the blood vessels in her body constricted. She was in pain. An electric shock stunned her while in the goo, and her heart began beating. The Cylon Mainframe in charge of the resurrection program detected the heart beat and detached the life support nodes from the base of the spinal column.

She gasped for air with an involuntary arch of the back. A flood of information came back to her. She was a Major in the Colonial Marine Core. She was the leader of a resistance on Scorpia. She found the human resistance on a jumping station. She activated. She was a Cylon. She received objectives from a source on FTB. She executed her objects with success. She succumbed to death after shooting the Colonial Admiral.

Then she realized, she was a Cylon and gasped for air again. She was disoriented and confused. The warm glowing goo began to cool. It was on her face, in her hair, and all over her body. She finally snapped out of her confusion and focused. She saw five faces while resurrecting. Who were they?

"You completed your objectives wonderfully," said Cavil. He was wearing a black fedora and a black trench coat. He knelt down next to the pod as he talked to D'Anna. "The station has been destroyed. The resistance on Scorpia has been extinguished. The human resistance has finally left the system, and they are on the run."

She stared at him, "Where's my model at?" She only saw One, and no Threes.

"Well, now we come to a problem. My dear, your model is fundamentally flawed and has been boxed."

She wasn't surprised. Cavil was always evil. Her fate was sealed. Putting up a fight was useless because she could hardly control her new body. "Boxing isn't permanent."

"No, but I can make it permanent," added Cavil. "Your line has seen the faces of the final five. This is forbidden."

"It's not a flaw to question our purpose," whispered D'Anna.

"The reason you are here, and not in cold storage yet, is because I have to ask you a question."

"A question," repeated D'Anna.

"Do the humans know anything about what we are doing on Scorpia?" asked Cavil, with a glint of evil in his eye.

She looked at him with contempt. "One must die to know the truth."

"You did die, and you know the truth. It is against yourself to not divulge the answer." He spoke slower. "Do-the hu-mans know what we are do-ing to the plan-et?"

Her eyes rolled over and she looked away from him as she whispered, "Frak you Cavil."

Cavil pressed his lips together in frustration and pressed the control node on the side of the resurrection pod. The goo in the pod activated and, instead of acting to upload data into a body, it downloaded D'Anna's consciousness from the body she was just resurrected to. He pushed the control node down, and pulled it out of its socket on the side of the pod. The pod darkened, and D'Anna's body died as her heart stopped.

Cavil walked away from the pod, with her consciousness on the control node in his hand. One of his brothers was with the survivors of the FTB attack. Hopefully, he would be downloading soon. Without FTB-Cavil's help, none of this would have been possible.

Boomer walked up to Cavil in the massive Resurrection Room inside the Resurrection Hub. "Did she know?"

"About the planet? No. The humans know nothing about our actions on Scorpia," answered Cavil.

"What do we do in the mean time?" asked Boomer.

"We wait."

---THE END---


	13. WAKING NIGHTMARE

EPILOGUE

---WAKING NIGHTMARE---

Cavil walked away from the pod, with her consciousness on the control node in his hand. One of his brothers was with the survivors of the FTB attack. Hopefully, he would be downloading soon. Without FTB-Cavil's help, none of this would have been possible.

Boomer walked up to Cavil in the massive Resurrection Room inside the Resurrection Hub. "Did she know?"

"About the planet? No. The humans know nothing about our actions on Scorpia," answered Cavil.

"What do we do in the mean time?" asked Boomer.

"We wait."

_Cavil and Boomer left the cavernous room on board the Resurrection Hub. The last 'Three' was in storage. The Resurrection Tank, or 'pod', reset itself and turned back on. The Three's body reconnected to the pod's life support umbilical, and the neurological bio-matter, a milky opaque gel, started preserving her organic breakdown, slowing the aging process. If the pod maintained power, the Three's body would survive, unchanged, and unaged. The pods served to preserve the lifeless bodies of Cylons, from production to resurrection, and had been proven to preserve them for long periods of time. Even years. _

_- - -_

_Deep in space, hundreds of lightyears from the Resurrection Hub, was an unique looking celestial object. From an overhead perspective, it looked like an eight pointed star. From the side, it looked like a predatory bird. It was nothing more than Cylon-bio-mechanical-organics allowed to run a muck and grow larger and larger. It was called the Colony, and served as the Cylon's home._

_The Colony was many times the size of FTB, and was a highly armed spaceship that acted as a home-world. Each of the eight spires, that made up most of the Colony, were larger than entire Battlestar Groups. Each spire was dedicated to the production of a single Cylon model. Except the seventh spire. _

_The seventh spire was off limits to all the Cylons, with the exception of the Ones, and Boomer. Inside, the spire was cold and dark, and had stopped producing Sevens decades ago, when they were all murdered. Instead of production, the spire was used as labs for the Ones. Guarded by Centurions, the labs were the home of the One's demonic plans on humanity._

_In one of the labs in the seventh spire, three resurrection pods sat in the middle of the room, in a flower formation from a center terminal. Only two of the pods were glowing. The third one was deactivated and drained of neurological bio-matter. The two glowing pods both had a dark figure submerged beneath the goo. One of the glowing pods began to activate._

_A single Centurion stood in the room and monitored the pods. It received a coded message from the hybrid in control of the seventh spire: **RESURRECTION IN PROGRESS OF THE LOST HAS RETURNED TO THE HOME OF THE EIGHT, ONCE THIRTEEN, NOW SEVEN.**_

_- - -_

The resurrection pod inside the lab completed its process. An electric shock spread across the goo. Simultaneously, the person in the pod arched his back and came out of the bio-matter. He inhaled a fresh breath of air. His hands come out of the opaque gel and grabbed the sides of the tank. He opened his eyes and began to panic out of instinct, like a baby coming out of the womb. Then he calmed for a moment.

He wasn't a One, nor a Two. He wasn't even a Four or a Five. He was a Seven. He began to panic again as the memories of his life came back to him. He saw the Centurion and screamed. He looked at the Resurrection Tank and yelled. He realized what he had been all this time, and he had a nervous break down. He looked at his body, and the room around him and cried. He kept screaming.

Through the gel, and tears on his face, the only thing Ryan Cody yelled was "NO! NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

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_**NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR:**_

_**Thank you everyone for reading my story. I always appreciate the reviews, they help to encourage me to write. Thank you to the individual readers who emailed with questions, I am glad to of had conversations concerning your concerns. **_

_**My goal was to write a plausible sequel that was in sync with the television series, without affecting BSG continuity. I also gave myself a limit of 10 chapters, which I broke. Just like my last story, BSG 41, I wanted to throw in answers to little things, the way the show Lost does with their characters.**_

_**I have plans on one more sequel, but it will be awhile. **_

_**I hope you enjoyed it, and thank you again.**_


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